Numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42

I've said before that reading the Bible will, at the very least, help me appreciate Lost even more. So when I started reading Numbers I thought, "Heck yeah! This is going to really make things clear!" At which point I went through looking for the following passages; 4:8, 15:16, 23:42. Unfortunately, there isn't a 23:42, so instead I just kept counting into chapter 24 and considered that passage to be the 42nd verse of chapter 23. Here's what I figured out:

NU 4:8 Oh man! This must be talking about...something....maybe how to protect yourself from the Smoke Monster? Yeah. That's it!

NU 15:16 Uh-oh! Kate better watch her back! I think. I'm not sure. This may not be a good idea.

NU "23:42" Yes! This is the key! If Jack is Balaam and Ben is Balak and...Oh, who am I kidding? That's not working out.

Anyway, if I can get back to being serious-ish, when they say "Numbers" they mean it! There's a few passages where all they do is list off the numbers of things like the results of censuses detailing the number of Israelites by their clan, where they'll camp, how many Levites there are, the number of firstborn males (and how much they're worth or something), the number of Kohathites, a whole bunch of stuff about shekels, another census of the Israelites, and how many things the Israelites "obtained" from the Midianites (more on that later). Now, I'm obviously no expert on the Bible, but I can't see why this stuff is necessary to preserve. I imagine there must be some reason or it never would have stayed in, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

There wasn't a lot (partially due to those lists) in Numbers for me to comment on. Most of it was fairly benign. However, there were a few things that really stood out to me and I'll go over them now.

NU 5:23-28 This is, in part, what is to be done to a woman that has been simply accused of adultery. She's to drink water mixed with dust from the ground. If she didn't cheat on her husband then she'll be fine and the water will have no effect on her. But if she did cheat on her husband then she'll experience bitter pain, her womb will swell, and her thigh will fall away (whatever that means).

I don't get how someone can read that and think that it was either 1) helpful for an ancient culture to survive or 2) inspired by an Omniscient God. It sounds more like the kind of trial by ordeal that we would expect from a primitive, superstitious culture bent on justice. And yet, people actually believe this was inspired by (or directly written by) an all-knowing God. I suppose it's possible that God simply felt this was the best plan of action, but it's an awfully curious method for an Omnipotent God to prefer.

NU 8:7 I believe "shaved" is the expression.

NU 11:18-20, NU 11:31-35 The people complain that they have nothing to eat, so the Lord gives them food and then kills them when they eat it because they rejected him.

What do you think is the most logical explanation for this story?

A) A failed attempt to understand/explain food poisoning

B) A failed attempt to understand/explain refeeding syndrome.

C) God was an angry, jealous god.

D) There is no logical explanation for this story.

NU 12:8, NU 14:11, NU 14:27, NU 22:9 An omniscient God asks more questions.

NU 15:32-36 I wonder if this guy was asking as he was being stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, "Can't you just make me drink some dirt-water!?!? I'll pretend it hurts!"

NU 25 Yes, let us violently kill someone for dating the wrong kind. That's a wonderful response.

At one point the Lord is angry with the people of Midian (for reasons that I'm not entirely clear on). So he tells Moses to avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Moses gathers an army and sends them to Midian where they kill every male. However, they let the women and children live and brought them back. Which I thought was somewhat decent of them to do. Except apparently it wasn't a good thing to do. So Moses tells the men in the army to kill all the little boys and all the women that weren't virgins (in the sexual sense) but to keep all young girls that were virgins alive for themselves. Maybe, maybe, there's some noble reason for this, but on the surface it looks really really bad. If there were some noble reason, then why keep only the young virgin girls? Was Israel having a shortage of women? It seems possible if they were making them drink dirt-water after a mere accusation but it doesn't get mentioned anywhere that I saw.

That's it for Numbers. Like I said, it's mostly pretty benign.

Usually I would end here but recently I came across something that gave me a lot of pause and I felt it needed to be included in this blog.

I read comic books and in the most recent issue of The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman a true story was retold. (Before I continue, I want to make it clear that Robert Kirkman does not give the conclusion that I got from this story. The Walking Dead is not an atheist book. It's a really good book about humanity. I highly recommend it. In fact, it's so good that AMC is making it into a TV show.) Now I actually heard this story when it first appeared in the news but I had forgotten about it. I don't know if I should thank Robert Kirkman for reminding me or punch him. It's easily one of the most horrific stories I've ever heard. I won't repeat all the details of the story here. I think the following quote from the 4-year-old boy involved pretty much covers it; "My daddy ate my eyes out." If you feel the need to read the full story, you may do so here.

For whatever reason, after hearing this story a second time I found myself unable to shake it from my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about this little boy and the unimaginable horror he must live with now for the rest of his life. Even though I feel somewhat selfish for doing so, I began to relate this to the idea of God and the Problem of Evil. I'm the kind of atheist that feels the existence of evil in the world doesn't disprove God. God may have a very good reason for allowing evil, even this especially egregious example. But as I thought about what it would mean for an omnipotent God to exist alongside such a terrible event more and more, I was eventually hit by a response that I feel is the only response I can have. I'll end with it here;

I would rather spend an eternity in Hell on behalf of that little boy than love a God that would allow that happen.

-Nikko

Understanding the Skeptic: Making Tracks to No Where

Understanding the Skeptic: More Than Just DNA

In the beginning, it was boring...

I just finished reading Genesis. For those of you that haven't read it **SPOILER ALERT** God creates everything and then does stuff that doesn't make sense and then people walk around and have sex and kill each other and build cities and then Egypt comes out of nowhere. Oh, and the whole time, it's really really really boring.

Ok, that's not totally true. Joseph and his super fabulous gay technicolor dreamcoat is a pretty good story. It's actually written somewhat well. I guess that's why it got a Broadway musical and Lot having sex with his daughters didn't.

But I digress. Here's what I think about Genesis other than that it should be prescribed in place of Ambien.

(For clarification's sake, I'm reading the ESV Bible. The links for the verses are to biblegateway.com.)

I'm going to ignore most of the obvious inconsistencies (like God creating everything and then creating man in chapter 1 only to turn around and make man BEFORE making the plants and animals in chapter 2) and just focus on the things that bothered me that I had never really heard before.

GE 1:26 God creates man and he says, "Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness." (emphasis mine) Who is he talking to!? The angels? They haven't been introduced yet. Either that's the lamest use of foreshadowing or there's something we're not being told. My theory? This was written at a time when people were henotheistic.

GE 2:16-17 God tells Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but, as we all know, he eats from it anyway. If God is all-knowing, he would know Adam would disobey him. So why did God give Adam a command he knew he wouldn't follow? (I've actually heard this complaint before. Here's a video of a pastor or something responding to this very question. It's hilarious!)

GE 3:6 I've always understood that the blame for eating the fruit lay with Eve. Now I understand she did eat it first but, according to this verse, Adam was there with her the whole time. He should have heard the snake tell Eve to eat the fruit. He could have stopped her. So it looks like they share the blame. Take that, misogynists!

GE 3:9, 3:11, 3:13, 4:6-7, 4:9-10, 18:13 For an all-knowing God, he sure does ask a lot of questions.

GE 6:19-20, 7:2-3 God tells Noah to take two of every kind onto the ark. Ok. So far so good. But then he tells him to take seven of the clean animals, "a pair of" the unclean animals, and seven pairs of the birds. Er....what? I read somewhere (coincidently after reading this for the first time) that the second group of animals is supposed to be for an offering after the flood. But no where does it say that! Unless I missed it. That's possible. I was falling asleep.

GE 10:5 "From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, and their nations." (emphasis mine) But then!! GE 11:1 "Now the whole earth had one language and the same words." Stop messing with my head, God!!!

GE 11:7, 14:18-20, 14:22 More of that henotheistic stuff.

GE 18:23-33 If God can see fit to consider sparing Sodom if even 10 righteous people live there, then people need to stop blaming natural disasters on wickedness. Unless 10 is actually some type of quota. If your city has only 9 righteous people, GET THE F*CK OUT NOW!!!!!!

GE 21:33 God is called "the Everlasting God" here. This could just be an adjective, I admit, but it seems odd to me to qualify God with a word like that unless you wish to set him apart from other gods.

GE 26:6-9 Apparently it was uncommon for people to laugh with their sisters. If you laugh with a woman, that is a dead giveaway that she's not your sister! Do not take your sister to a comedy club. Everyone will think you're married. Gross!

GE 26:23 I just want to say that Beersheba sounds like an AWESOME place.

GE 27:22-23 Seriously? I'm supposed to believe that Esau is as hairy as a goat? Or at least his hands are. And presumably his neck. Isaac never checks Jacob (disguised as Esau) there but Rebekah makes sure to put goat skin on his neck just in case. This can only mean one of three things; A) Esau is slightly hairier than Robin Williams, B) Isaac is a moron, C) This book is folklore!! (hint: C)

GE 28:2 Isaac tells Jacob to marry his cousin. Oooook. Maybe B was correct.

GE 29:16-25 How is it possible to sleep with someone and not know it's a different woman than the woman you've deeply loved for seven years until the next morning? That's not beer goggles, that's beer blindfolds and beer mittens and beer fifty-five condoms!!!

GE 30:22 "Then God remembered Rachel..." Then God remembered Rachel? What part of all-knowing doesn't God understand?

GE 31:19 Just more evidence, IMO, of henotheism going on. I understand in some versions "household gods" is actually "teraphims" but later in GE 31:30 they are clearly called gods. Now, I suppose it could be argued that these were false idols, but going with the earlier examples I give, I think it's more likely this is a sign of the beliefs people had back then.

GE 32:22-32 Jacob wrestles with a man that is apparently God and this man tells Jacob his new name is Israel. So of course, in the next chapter, he's still called Jacob.

But wait! GE 35:9-10 God comes back and tells Jacob again, "Dude! Your name is Israel!! Get it right!" And Jacob is all, "You got it, Chief!"

GE 35:14 "And Jacob set up a pillar..." AARRRGGGHHH!!! From here on out he is called Jacob or Israel interchangeably and without notice. What's up with that? No. Seriously. What's up with that!?

GE 49:7 "...I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." See!!?!?! That doesn't even make sense.

Those are pretty much all the main points that struck me as odd or interesting. Overall, while reading Genesis, I was struck by just how false all of it felt. I can't fathom how anyone could take this as literal. The descriptions and dialogue and situations all feel more like folklore than history. The stories of the interactions of all these people and the cities they build and the lineages they create remind me of Romulus and Remus or Gilgamesh. It reads like a way for people to have an origin story that makes them feel special. So, I wouldn't be surprised if aspects of Genesis are true (mainly the names of cities and peoples) but outside of that I just see a boring, confusing, and unbelievable mash-up of myths.

Granted, a lot of Christians do consider it to be metaphorical or allegorical, but then how do they not take the logical step of applying that to the rest of the book? I guess I'll understand more as I read the rest of the Bible. Or not. We'll see.

-Nikko

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Understanding the Skeptic (second posting)

**LATE EDITION** (Added 2/27 at 2:36 PM CT) For an interesting interpretation of the Adam and Eve story I highly recommend reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. It's pretty fascinating.

Understanding the Christian: Intro

If you asked me "Why are you an atheist?," the best answer I could give you is that there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence for any God. It's the same reason why I don't believe in the existence of ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs, leprechauns, psychic powers, the flying spaghetti monster, etc. The list of things that could possibly exist but for which we have no empirical evidence is infinite.

I say this to point out that I'm not the kind of atheist that doesn't believe in God because I think the God of the Bible is a jerk. Not only do I think that's a poor argument to make (maybe God had really good reasons to do really crappy things to people), I've never actually read the Bible all the way through. Honestly I've hardly read any of it. So I couldn't make that argument from an educated position even if I wanted to.

Now, I'm personally comfortable with never having read the Bible. I think the lack of empirical evidence says enough about the existence of God that a book (I know the Bible is many books but just go with it for now) of hearsay won't change my mind. Still, anytime I have a conversation/debate/knife fight with a Christian the Bible inevitably comes up. When I admit I've never read it, it's either said directly or implied that if I did read it all the way through I would somehow have a different take on the Christian position. It's too easy to point out that plenty of other atheists have read the Bible thoroughly and are still not convinced. It's not just easy, it's lazy.

This became very apparent to me recently when I was having an online discussion with a Christian friend of mine (there are links to the discussion at the bottom of this post). After going back and forth for a while we both agreed to a partnered blog series. I'm going to read the Bible and post about my thoughts on this blog while he is going to read Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" and post his thoughts on his own blog in a series called Understanding the Skeptic.

My personal goal in all of this is first and foremost to finally be able to say, "Why yes, I have read the Bible. Boo-ya!" Well, at least finally be able to say it honestly. Secondly, I hope to gain some knowledge of exactly what the Bible says so I can speak from a personal position, rather than secondhand, when discussing its usefulness or lack thereof as a source of morals. And thirdly, I truly hope I can gain a better understanding of the Christian position. While I doubt that I will be converted by reading the Bible, as though there were some verse I had never heard before that'll suddenly make it all clear, I plan to approach this process with an open, albeit skeptical, mind. We probably can't all agree with each other on everything but it can never hurt to understand why someone believes what they do.

If it weren't obvious already, I have no intention of using the Bible to disprove the existence of God. The Bible can't disprove God anymore than it can prove him. I may occasionally point out what seem to be inconsistencies in God's behavior or things that don't make sense but I will do so only as a way of expressing my incredulity and confusion.

I hope you, the reader, will be kind enough to read both of these blogs and comment on them when you agree but especially when you disagree. I'd rather know I'm being accurate than liked.

-Nikko Elliott

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Understanding the Skeptic