Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Bible is For Adults, Not Children

Even today I see "Children's Bibles," which is rather amusing, considering the Bible is for adults, not children. It's full of stories about sex, prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, polygamy, orgies, public orgies, drunkeness, divorce, murder, attempted murder, mass murder, war, genocide, human sacrifice, treason, trickery, torture, dismemberment, idolatry, sorcery, the slaughter of babies, backstabbing, incest, rape, gang-rapes until the woman is dead, child molestion, mutilation, theft and, worst of all, politics! If you want to understand the worst of human nature, there are few things more informative than the Bible.

I understand why throughout history the average person was not supposed to interpret the Bible. They don't have the brains or education to understand it. It's complex stuff. When you go that way you end up with Jimmy Swaggart and Elmer Gantry and all those crying televangelists begging for your money. And those are the good guys compared to what has happened in the past.

Right at the beginning, in Genesis, you get a story about how evil came into the world, when Eve is targeted by the serpent (a symbol of envy and hate), then after falls for the promise of being like God she cons the weak-willed Adam into eating of the fruit of the tree. Then Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent. That scapegoating and denial of responsibility is what brings evil into the world and gets them booted straight out of the Garden of Eden.

(Incidentially, it wasn't even a serpent - it was a shining, talking, apparently upright serpent-like being called a nachash.)

Since people in general - and certainly groups of people, which are always brainless - think other people are the cause of their problems they have to get rid of them. And that has been the history of the world. That's what scapegoating is: it's not my fault. It's yours.

Immediately after Adam and Eve you get the first murder, when Cain brains Abel. Why? Because of his feelings of shame and humiliation and rejection - which is what causes almost all murders. It's an attempt to get rid of the person on whom you blame your problems.

Then after that you get what is pretty much the first war, although completely one-sided, when Dinah's brothers slaughter an entire tribe after one of the princes of that tribe seduces Dinah - and apparently she wanted to be seduced.

Three stories right at the beginning! And they explain so much of human nature that anyone who ignores those stories is making a very big mistake.

Then you get the story of Lot. As a child the only thing I remembered was Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt, which always seemed to be a pretty severe punishment for looking back one time.

But there is a lot more to the story than that.

Lot is a buffoon and clearly a chronic, brain-damaged alcoholic - at one time he ends up naked and dead drunk in his tent. And since his children are grown when they find him in this state, he appears to be in late 40s or early 50s.

Most of the alcoholics I've known were dead by that age.

Before his children find him naked, dead-drunk and passed out cold, there is one of the most disturbing stories in the Bible.

Lot and his family, who live in Sodom (as in sodomy) receive two vistors that Lot is convinced are angels, whom he thinks are going to give him all kinds of goodies.

The men of Sodom appear outside Lot's house and demand the two men be sent out because they want to gang-rape them.

Lot, afraid of losing his angelic rewards, tells the men he will give them his two virgin daughters. Here we have a buffoon and a narcissisic, selfish old drunk, afraid of offending what he thinks are angels, telling the men they can gang-rape his two virgin daughters, if they will leave his visitors alone.

I've read various rationalizations about why Lot did this. He was protecting his visitors from molestation, and that offering your daughters to strangers was no big thing in those days.

I don't think so.

The culture in those days was shame-based, not guilt-based. Today it is still shame-based, which is why you hear so many stories about women being murdered for bringing "shame" on the family. How often does that happen in the West? Never.

Even Adam and Eve feel shame at being caught naked, not guilt. And Cain murders Abel out of shame and feelings of humiliation. He never showed the slightest bit of guilt and in fact was defiant.

Lot doesn't feel any guilt about offering his daughters to be gang-raped. But I'm sure he would have been unbearably shamed if those man had raped his visitors and he had been helpless to stop it.

Finally the potential rapists wander away.

Small children clearly feel shame before they feel guilt. That's why I think the story of the Garden of Eden makes more sense if you consider Adam and Eve about three years old.

None of these stories are about guilt. They're all about shame. The shame of Adam and Eve. The shame of Cain. The shame of Dinah's brothers. Lot's fear of being shamed.

Some shame, of course, is necessary. Guilt, too. But there is such a thing as too much.

In the West we are overwhelmingly a guilt-based culture. Other cultures are more shame-based, and that is why there is so much discussion of shame in Genesis.

These two kinds of cultures are never going to mix successfully, which is one reason, little-discussed, why multiculturalism will never work.

I was once standing in a grocery line behind some midget Asian guy. He had a shopping cart full of soda pop cans, and it was clear he was buying them on sale to sell to black people in his convenience store. The two check-out men were having trouble pricing all these cans (there were about 100 of them), when the midget pipes up and bitterly claims the men were treating him "like a criminal."

He was hallucating the whole thing. He thought they were trying to shame him. They were trying to help him. I stood there and watched the whole thing.

So I spoke up and suggested the midget was in the wrong country and he should not speak like that to those men, since they were only trying to help. I told him he was insulting me.

He looked at me and decided to shut up. He was what? 5'4"? Over seven inches shorter than me.

That's what happens in shame-based cultures. Often they hallucinate insults when they're not there and then they go into a rage.

Mixing two such cultures to going to cause nothing but problems. It's right there in the Bible, which is as anti-multicultural as can be. That's what much of the genocide is about - when incompatible cultures encounter one another.

23 comments:

Black Poison Soul said...

Good to see you back, Bob.

I remember reading a "child's bible" when younger. Specifically, I remember the story of Cain and Abel. In that particular child's bible, Abel was a farmer and Cain was a herdsman.

Abel's sacrifice of grain and fruit was accepted by God, Cain's sacrifice of the first of his flock was not. Thus the murder.

Later, when I read the adult's bible, I saw that it was reversed. I even went back to double-check that my memory wasn't whacked-out. It wasn't - the two were different.

Larry said...

Growing up in a christian family, and regularly attending Sunday school and vacation bible study during the summer, most but not all of the bible stories were presented to me like some bullshit disney cartoon. I imagine not much has changed for other children today.

I don't know if this is true, but according to churchian lore, the garden of eden/origins story was mainly to explain how humanity and animal species transitioned from being asexual immortal beings to being sexual reproducing mortal beings.

Glen Filthie said...

Well I dunno Larry. Walt Disney was a good man, and living by the codes of conduct set out in the Bible will only make you a better, stronger person. Christianity set the stage for the most civilized, tolerant and successful states ever in the history of the human animal.

Say what you want about their myths and legends - their communities and families are the best the human animal can produce too. I look at the elderly hippies, the queers, the militant atheists with their fuck-headed women and feral children and note that they are a big step backward on any evolutionary scale.

The Bible to me is a snap shot of humanity: it illustrates our greatest fears and victories, it shows us at our best and our worst, and it gives hope and encouragement to those that need it - and dire warnings to assholes that need to clean up their act and be threatened. When I look at the televangelists and other turd brains that have corrupted it and perverted it - I see a striking resemblance to the same people corrupting our science, our laws and our children today.

Unknown said...

If you want to see the worst of human nature, read the OT.

If you want to see the best of human nature, read the NT.

Unknown said...

(Incidentially, it wasn't even a serpent - it was a shining, talking, apparently upright serpent-like being called a nachash.)

I've always understood that to be Lucifer (Satan). Which would make sense about the shining part.

Ja D said...

Agree with pretty much everything, comments too.

Unknown said...

"I've always understood that to be Lucifer (Satan). Which would make sense about the shining part."

It was John Milton in "Paradise Lost" who first identified Lucifer with the "serpent."

Black Poison Soul said...

@Glen Filthie - I have to agree with you. On the whole they aren't as messed up as the atheists.

little dynamo said...

You know a Lot more about the cab business than you do about Scripture.

Unknown said...

As far as the serpent is concerned...it is the enemy of humanity. Its goal is to make humans think they are missing out on something when in reality the serpent wants us to be in the same hell it is in.

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

"I was once standing in a grocery line behind some midget Asian guy...So I spoke up and suggested the midget was in the wrong country and he should not speak like that to those men, since they were only trying to help. I told him he was insulting me."

Talking about the behavior of serpents, Bob's conduct in this situation he describes is eerily similar.

Peter 3:8-12--> Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Mindstorm said...

'Holier than thou' attitude won't score any points here.

Bob, is that true that Muslims traditionally had been approved to bang their non-Muslim slaves at whim by the prophet Muhammad and his imams? An interesting exception from zina, don't you think? It would encourage to join jihad better than any abstract argument for inferiority of kuffar.

Mindstorm said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_slavery - hmmm....

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

"'Holier than thou' attitude won't score any points here."

That's rich coming from you. I'm merely following your lead.


"Bob, is that true that Muslims traditionally had been approved to bang their non-Muslim slaves at whim by the prophet Muhammad and his imams?"

No different than Christians or Jews.

Mindstorm said...

As an atheist I'm not that dumb to criticize the blog owner for not being Christian enough.

Thank you for your excuses, but I prefer if you don't hide behind me ('following my lead'), coward. Typical female behavior.

Ho, ho, no different. So you are able to name a quote from the Bible clearly in favor of sex-slavery?

Anonymous said...

Not all cultures are equal.

White, European, Anglo-Saxon, Christian men are predominately responsible for creating and building what are considered modern civilization, culture and technological innovations. The rest of the world has followed their lead. This assertion is not politically correct, but it's the brutal truth.

The Obvious said...

Don't bother debating Cheechy Girl, she's a passive aggressive barren spinster who can't stop lying, and has multiple sock puppet accounts.

Unknown said...

"Talking about the behavior of serpents, Bob's conduct in this situation he describes is eerily similar."


I beg to differ. I think it more describes the midget's behavior. And perhaps he learned a lesson to how to behave in America and not expect us to follow his alien, shame-based beliefs.

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

"As an atheist..."

I pray for your redemption.


"Not all cultures are equal."

In the eyes of the Lord they are.


"but I prefer if you don't hide behind me ('following my lead'), coward."

You ought to mind your manners.


"Don't bother debating Cheechy Girl..."

What troubles you, lad?


"So you are able to name a quote from the Bible clearly in favor of sex-slavery?"

It's there in the Good Book. Pick it up and educate yourself.

Mindstorm said...

@The Obvious:
Good advice. I wouldn't call this hag a girl, though.

Mindstorm said...

"I pray for your redemption."

And as a parting shot, spare me your fake kindness. Why not do anything tangible for someone that would care about you? No, cats and other pets don't count.

Mindstorm said...

'Why won't you do...' looks better.

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

I pray for your redemption.