Deuteronomy 9-13: Circumcise your heart. No, really.

Guess what, Moses is still talking.

He talks some more about how the enemy is strong, but never fear, you will destroy them with God's help. (Also God's magic hornet, but it doesn't mention that. Boo.) But! God is not helping you because you are righteous! It is because they are wicked, more wicked than you.

So... what, this is like that one joke; how fast do you have to be to outrun a bear and/or zombie? Faster than the other guy! How do you survive God's wrath? Be slightly less wicked than somebody else! Got it.

He's also helping because God never reneges on a promise! (Though he can apparently take 500 years to make good on it, and kill bunches of your people in the meantime) But of course, I still want to know why he bothered to make a promise to Abraham in the first place.

To illustrate just how unrighteous the Israelites are, Moses rehashes the story of how they made a gold calf to worship, while Moses was off getting the tablets of covenant law. Of course, all those people are dead now so I don't know why this is supposed to make them feel bad about themselves.

Funny thing about that story, Moses says while he was off getting the 1st set of tablets (the ones he broke), he didn't eat or drink for 40 days. Then he went to get the 2nd set of tablets, and also didn't eat or drink for 40 days, but that time it was because of their sin. So what, the first time he didn't eat or drink just for fun? At that point they hadn't sinned yet, after all.

My, Moses really likes to guilt them. I don't want to be offensive, but I'm pretty sure Moses is the world's first stereotypical Jewish grandfather. Oh how I've suffered for you!! But don't worry about it, I'll be fine. Also I'll be dead soon. But don't worry about it, I know how you have things to do.

He also mentioned some of the other times God got angry enough to kill them, but not in as much detail.

Then Moses says, God doesn't ask for so much really! Just your complete, unthinking, unwavering, zombie-like obedience! Love him, serve him, fear him, and above all obey him. We've heard this before, sigh.

God owns everything in heaven and earth, and yet he chose you losers as his favorite. The least you could do is give him what he wants...obedience. Therefore, "circumcise your hearts, and do not be stiff-necked any longer." What a disgusting image. What the fuck does that even mean??

So, God chose you out of all people to be his favorite. And in return, all you have to do is have absolutely no choice in how you live your own life, or even how you think your own thoughts. Stray out of the tight little mold God has made for you to live in, and he will fucking kill you. How magnanimous God is! What a great deal! Ugh.

LOL: "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes." God is God of gods. What an excellent definition of God.

Also, since when does God accept no bribes?? Are they supposed to stop doing animal sacrifice now? No. God demanded the first born of all people and animals (for what, who knows). Then he decided to take all the Levites instead. Is that over now? Do the Levites get to live their own lives instead of being bound in service to the priesthood? No. God not only accepts bribes, he demands them. And yes, those things are bribes; they do them to gain favor with God (ie, not be killed by him). So what the fuck is that all about?

Ugh, Moses is still going on about "love and obey God." STILL.

Apparently this land is so fantastic because God cares for it... this whole time he's cared for it, even though the Israelites aren't there yet and it's been inhabited by the 'even more unrighteous than the Israelites and therefore they deserve to die' people.

Also, they won't have to irrigate it because it "drinks rain from heaven." So...it rains here. Awesome. But only if they love God will it rain. If they don't love God, he "will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you." Ouch.

So why does it rain there now, with all the wicked people in it? If this is how it works, shouldn't God have been saying, "no rain for you, wicked people!" And they all would have died or moved away, and the conquest would have been so much easier. Or is this just another example of God making the Israelites' lives harder for no apparent reason. This book makes no sense.

Once again, Moses tells them to destroy all their places of worship and holy things. God has been going on about this about a million times since Exodus. I think they get the picture.

He also says that once they're all settled in the promised land, God will come and "put his Name" on some place, and that is where they all have to go to do their sacrifices and whatnot. Don't do sacrifices just anywhere! Do them at that one specific place.

Now, I don't know how big the promised land is, but I imagine that some people will have to travel for weeks to get to this place. How can God possibly avoid playing favorites when he picks this place? Or maybe that doesn't matter to him.

While he's talking about sacrifice, he reminds everyone that they aren't allowed to eat (drink?) blood, but this time he includes the reason: the blood is where the "life" is. I'm pretty sure all life isn't in the circulatory system. Maybe that's where the soul is.

Lol. If some prophet shows up and says "let's worship other gods!" - that is actually God testing you. He wants to see if you really love him. Why does he have to test them like that?? Why does he make them destroy all the people and holy objects just so they wouldn't be tempted to worship other gods, only to throw temptation at them himself? What's the point??

Oh yeah, and that prophet... he must be put to death. Why? If God is making this happen, why does that guy have to die now?? What is his crime? Being a pawn in God's sick twisted mind games? What the fuck!?!?!

Yes, put to death anyone who suggests worship of another god, be it your brother, son, daughter or wife. Stone them to death! And you, who love them, must cast the first stone. Even though God is apparently mind-controlling them just to fuck with you. Prove your loyalty to God by killing your loved ones. This makes me ill.

Furthermore, if some town has gone astray and started worshiping other gods, you must kill everybody in the town and then burn the town to the ground, as a burnt offering to God. Only if you do this burnt offering will God "show you mercy." Um, mercy for what? You weren't worshiping other Gods; those other people were.

Anyway, then the town must remain a burnt ruin forever.

This is awfully convenient. Kill anyone at the first hint of turning away from God! Then no one will ever have to be confronted with a different opinion ever again. Not for long anyway. How lovely.

Genesis 2-3: Creation (again), Adam and Eve

Chapter 2 starts back at the beginning, with the creation of heaven and earth. Then God makes man “from the dust of the ground,” and puts him in the Garden of Eden. After some time, God creates woman from the rib of the man. All of this is in direct contradiction with the previous chapter, of course. Apparently there are 2 creation stories that contradict each other in the same holy book, who knew?

So God has put Adam and Eve in paradise, but there’s a catch…in this paradise, made by God especially for Adam and Eve, God also put a tree, which apparently serves no purpose other than specifically to tempt Adam and Eve. If they ate from it, they would die.

I imagine creating a paradise for my cat...a room, in my apartment, filled with catnip plants, fish to eat, bits of string to play with, etc. But then I decide to store my poisoned catnip plant of knowledge in that room too, for no good reason. Then I’d explain carefully to the cat that it can have all the catnip it wants, except for this specific catnip. How much sense does that make, when I could just...not put that plant in that room? Or I could even have made a... broccoli of knowledge. You know, something cats don't like anyway. Not that hard.

I have to ask… couldn’t God have just put his tree somewhere else? Or just not made the tree in the first place? Or not made his creations, Adam and Eve, so gullible?

If you’re interpreting this story metaphorically, I suppose it’s OK…but there are people who really think this literally happened! As a literal history, this makes no sense at all.

So Chapter 3, Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden, with the tree that they are arbitrarily forbidden to eat from. So of course the serpent tempts Eve, Eve eats from the tree, and gives some to Adam too. Then they hear God walking around and yelling, “Where are you?” so they hide. (Walking? Saying “where are you?” God doesn’t sound so omnipotent in this part) God finds them and learns what happened, and curses the serpent to crawl around on its stomach (what was it doing before, I wonder?), woman to painful childbirth and perpetual servitude to man, and man to labor and toil. Then God made them some nice clothes and sent them away. And he puts a Cherub and a big flaming sword there as guard.

I find it interesting that in Chapter 2, God tells them that if they eat from the tree of knowledge, they would die. Well, they ate, and they didn’t die…did God just lie to them? Maybe it was referring to the point that they were made mortal when they were kicked out of Eden, and so they were made so they would die at some point.

In the new catholic edition of the bible, it actually says that if they ate from the tree, they would die on that same day. Well, that obviously didn’t happen. Which version are we to believe? In one, God is just sort of vague…yeah, you’ll die, but I’m not saying when. In the other, God outright lies to them…if you eat, you’ll die on that same day, which they didn’t.

Isn’t it weird that we have 2 versions of the bible (which 30% of Americans believe is the inerrant and literal word of God), in the same language, that each say such different things?