#26
Low blow:
Gen. 17:14 "And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his
foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his
people; he hath broken my covenant."
So if your parents forget to circumcise you and you die before you're
old enough to get yourself circumcised, you're the one who is
punished!

According to the Bible, the Judaic god himself ordained circumcision
*for no other reason* than to establish a covenant with his chosen
people. He appeared "in person" to Abram. He spoke these
instructions directly to him. He gave no indication it would ever be
overturned or would ever cause problems.

But why was circumcision even necessary? Why were Judaists required
to undertake this dangerous mutilation? This this god himself could
simply and easily have ensured that all Judaist children were, from
that point on, born foreskin-less, or he could have made his
miraculous covenant perfectly transparent by having the foreskin
dematerialise and soon as someone truly commits to a life in this god?

There is absolutely no point to circumcision. Did Jewish men go
around flashing each other to prove they were of the faith? Nope!
Was their god unable to discern his followers unless they were
mutilated? He's not much of a god if he was.

Did men with circumcision do anything different from men without? No
- there were Judaists who didn't properly keep the faith who were
circumcised, and as Paul revealed, there were those who had no
circumcision who could be just as pious. St Paul to the rescue:
Rom 3:1 "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of
circumcision?"
1Co 7:19 "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but
the keeping of the commandments of God."
Gal. 6:15: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision availeth anything, but a new creation."

Paul overrode the Judaic god himself and declared that no one actually
need be circumcised because the true covenant is in Jesus Christ, not
in mutilation. So after centuries of mutilation, Paul overturned it
all. You don't need to be circumcised. It's nothing. What matters
is the Messiah.

But what were Jesus's own last words on the topic? If we're to
believe the Bible they were (taking John as the last word):
John 7:23 "If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the
law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have
made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?"

Jesus never repudiated circumcision. He declared it was the law of
Moses and clarified (in verse 22) that it was not done because Moses
had said to do it but because it had been given to the patriarchs from
their god.

So here we have a direct conflict between the OT and the NT, between
the Judaists and the Christians, between the Judaic god and the
Judaist Jesus. No one ever corrected it or explained it. The
Judaists are still convinced that the Christians are wrong. The
Christians are still convinced that the Judaists are wrong. Someone
is lying.

We've seen that there's really no point to circumcision: it proves
nothing and reveals nothing. It's an unnecessary mutilation of
children. People may claim there are health benefits to it today, but
this was *never* part of the covenant.

So did the Judaic god *not* know that circumcision would be overturned
by Paul? Did Jesus not know it? Why establish it in the first place
if it was going to be overridden anyway? As Genesis 34 reveals, it
was cruelly and deceitfully abused.

Did the Judaic god lie about circumcision? Did Paul lie about it? Or
did this eternal, unchanging god simply change his perfect, divine
mind?

#27
Cow-towing to God:
Gen. 18:1-8 "And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of
Mamre...Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your
feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of
bread...And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make
ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes
upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf
tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress
it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed,
and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they
did eat."

So the creator - the ineffable divine spirit - appears with two
companions, neither of whom are identified. All are described as
men. Abraham washes the creator's feet, then makes the creator of the
universe wait for however many hours it takes to kill, dress, and cook
a calf, after which the pure-spirit eternal being sits down and chows
with Abraham and family. Isn't this just an eensy bit Alice-in-
Wonderland?

This visit serves two purposes. One is to tell the aging Sarah that's
she's going to get pregnant. The other is to declare the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah. The moral of that story appears to be that if
you're being threatened by a mob, please do feel free to sacrifice
your virgin children to them for the safety of the adults in your
party. When two "angels" appear at Sodom (presumably the two
companions of the LORD who visited Abraham), Lot takes them in.

The angels could readily have appeared inside Lot's house and no one
would have known they were there, but instead, they appear outside.
Even though they were quite willing to sleep in the street (why hadn't
they planned the timing of this trip better?), Lot insists they come
inside. When the men outside want to "know" the new guys in town,
instead of asking the angels for help or at least for advice, Lot
voluntarily rushes out and blurts this amazing offer:
Gen. 19:8 "...I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I
pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in
your eyes..."

Now this is the most righteous man in the entire city, according to
the omniscient god of Abraham. Yet he has absolutely no qualms about
allowing the forcible rape of two children in order to protect two
"angels" who can well take care of themselves.

So where is the lie here? Is it that Lot is purportedly the most
moral person in the city - worthy of being saved, when quite obviously
his morality is seriously in question?

Is it that god and the angels are spirit when clearly they are men (or
vice-versa)?

Is it that the Bible claims you cannot look this Biblical god in the
face when quite clearly you can?

Is it the Bible pretends to be a moral guide when clearly it isn't?

We're spoiled for choice, aren't we?

#28
How sweet we see thee lie:
There's actually another lie in this same story. Remember how Abraham
dickers with the immutable, perfect, omniscient god of the Jews? Did
this god *know* Abraham would bargain with him? If so, why not simply
say that he wouldn't overthrow the city if ten righteous men were
found in it?

Why overthrow the entire city at all? Why not just destroy the evil
people and leave everyone else alone? Apparently this god isn't
omnipotent, and equally apparently the Bible writers were so starved
for original material that they had to keep cribbing from earlier
stories.

They stole the Epic of Gilgamesh and invented from it a new flood
story with a new hero called Noah. They stole the Moses story of the
wholesale slaughter of male children in Exodus and re-applied it to
the story of Jesus. And shades of incest, they re-stole the story of
Noah, where one righteous family is spared catastrophic destruction
and applied it here as one family being spared the catastrophic
destruction of the cities of the plains.

But we learn that Lot not only has a wife and two virgin daughters,
but also at least two other married daughters, making at the very
minimum eight righteous people. The deal was ten righteous people,
and presumably Abraham knew this. So why did he stop at ten instead
of eight? It would appear that there were other members of Lot's
family which are not enumerated (no sons are mentioned, for example).
But if those others were not righteous, why were they saved? If there
were eight, ten or more, why did this god not keep his promise to save
the city?

If this god promised, as he did, to spare Zoar:
Gen 19:21 "And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning
this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which
thou hast spoken."
why did he then destroy all the cities of the plains:
Gen. 19:29 "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the
plain, that God...sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he
overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt."

So Abraham's farcical dickering with the Creator of the Universe over
whether to spare a city that this god had already decided to destroy
was a waste of time. Lot's entourage wasn't enough to save them no
matter how many were in it.

It appears that the Judaic god made a promise he knew for a fact he
would never keep. He lied. Or whoever made up this story lied about
the details and no righteous person could subsequently be found to
correct the lie and no god ever said, "Hey, he lied about this. It
never happened like that".

Sad, isn't it?

#29
Gen. 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt
Abraham..."
Jam. 1:13 "...for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he
any man:"

A clear and unambiguous lie.

#30
Jacob's Smack-Down
Gen. 32:24-30 "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with
him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of
Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said,
Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go,
except thou bless me...And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:
for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

So Jacob wrestles with a man. No, he wrestles with a god! No, it was
a man!

Despite having created everything from nothing just a few years before
and being omnipotent, this god somehow cannot manage to overcome a
tiny piece of his creation and has to cheat by hitting him in the
balls!

Jacob nevertheless will not let him go until he gets a blessing, and
the god gives in! Even the Greeks weren't so clueless as to make
their Gods so pathetic.

And Jacob sees this god face to face and doesn't die or go mad,
despite the Bible claiming elsewhere that you cannot look upon the
face of this god.

Is it likely that something like this really happened? Or is it more
likely that it's nothing but an invention of ignorant and
superstitious scribes, not one of whom subsequently found the courage
or the divine inspiration to admit to?

Budikka