By JEFF SCHWEITZER - WWW.RICHARDDAWKINS.NET
Added: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:01:58 UTC - An RDFRS Original

Rational observers have long recognized that children in western societies, and particularly in the United States, are subjected to religious indoctrination at an age when most vulnerable intellectually. Contained in the package of seductive lies spoon fed to our kids are Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the myth that moral behavior is desirable only as a means of securing a berth in heaven. Morality, according to these teachings, is not an obligation or a characteristic inherent to humankind, but something to be cynically manipulated for other gains or bartered in exchange for bad behavior. This concept of morality for sale is now so deeply embedded into the fabric of our society that the underlying premise is rarely challenged. Small gatherings of rationalists determined to hold back the tsunami of ignorance have yet to create much of an impact. So for the vast majority of humanity a jealous, hateful, wrathful, bloody, murderous, spiteful, mean-spirited and vengeful god is the only role model for moral behavior. That our species “has issues” is no surprise.

Religious morality is based on the idea that god reveals to humankind how to live through his word as laid down in the Holy Book. No matter how flawed the premise, the bible remains for a billion or so human beings the instruction manual to life. Just as one would expect the captain of a Boeing 747 to have read the operations manual for his airplane before departing with 300 passengers in tow, one would assume that most Jews and Christians would have read cover to cover the source document for all knowledge about the Almighty. Not so. Few people professing a belief in god have read more than a few passages from the collection of 66 books constituting the bible. Anecdotally the number of faithful who have read the bible in its entirety is well under 10 percent, although the actual number is notoriously difficult to pin down. Consider this for a moment: people who believe in this mystical man in the sky with magical powers are convinced the word of god is available to them in plain English, offering them a direct connection to the creator of the universe, an opportunity to understand humanity’s greatest mysteries. But they do not bother to look. Perhaps these folks ignore the instruction manual because somewhere deep down they know the entire enterprise is fraudulent. Best not to look too closely for fear of discovering that the wizard is nothing but a fat guy behind a curtain. Ignorance is a virtue. The more loudly one claims fealty to faith the more easily one can suppress the gnawing doubt about who or what is pulling the strings.

Ignorance of biblical text might explain why a 2006 Gallup poll revealed that more than 30 percent of Americans believe the bible to be the literal word of god. Only by not reading the document could the glaring inconsistencies and incongruities be readily ignored, which they must be if god is to remain an infallible moral counselor. Since the faithful will not read what they believe to be literally true, let’s do the work for them. On their behalf we will look at what the god of Abraham has to say about morality, in his own words. For the sake of consistent analysis I will use the Authorized King James Version of the bible published by Thomas Nelson Bibles.

Perhaps most striking is that slavery, incest, rape, polygamy and misogyny are fully condoned and encouraged by god. Literally. In Genesis 4:19, we are told that Jacob had two wives; Solomon was busier with 700; and this was before Viagra. In Genesis 16:2, Sarah gave permission to Abraham, her husband, to have sex with her maid, Hagar. Of course since Hagar was a maid, she did not need to consent to this relationship; Sarah gave Abraham permission to rape Hagar so that she could act as a surrogate egg source. Genesis 19:8 tells the story of how all the men from Sodom surrounded Lot’s house to demand sex with the male guests Lot was hosting. But having a sense of decorum Lot instead offered up his two daughters for the evening’s activities: “I have two daughters which have not known man; let me I pray you, bring them unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.” Such an action was perfectly acceptable because women were nothing but property to be used at will. Genesis 19:30 goes on to tell us much more about Lot, who was not satisfied with giving up his daughters to be gang-raped by the waiting mob. Lot himself subsequently had sex with both. Each became pregnant as a result, each giving birth to a son.

This biblical vignette yields deep insights into god’s twisted mind. He nuked Sodom to punish the city’s decadence. He turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for the petty crime of voyeurism, a rather harsh sentence (and another problem for literalists). This is a guy in a bad mood with low tolerance for misbehavior. Yet Lot walked free, unpunished. We know then that god thought that Lot offering up his daughters to gang-rape was just fine, compared with his wife’s capital offense of looking back to glimpse the burning city. This deity should be arrested as a sociopath rather than held up as an inspiration for human morality.

With this story of Lot we have sadly only scratched the surface of god’s moral turpitude. God makes clear throughout the bible his view that women are unclean and the source of man’s biggest woes. God’s brutal treatment of women is relentless. Ecclesiastes 25:18 claims that, "Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die." Turning a woman to salt is no loss.

Leviticus 15:19-30 contains a series of long passages that condemn a woman as filthy while menstruating, and only clean again spiritually and physically seven days after her period started. Leviticus 15:28 gets quite specific, noting that on the 8th day, a woman can return to society, but only after she goes to a priest and sacrifices two pigeons or two doves (or turtledoves according to the King James Version). This sacrifice is necessary to atone for her sin of being unclean. Leviticus 20:18 and Ezekiel 18:5 continue god’s obsession with vaginal bleeding, basically equating that biological function with immorality.

God also has some quaint ideas about punishment for moral backsliding. Exodus 21:16 tells us that if a man seduces a virgin, the crime is not against the woman but instead is considered theft of the father’s property. Deuteronomy 22:13 calmly demands that if a woman presents herself as a virgin but is not, on her wedding night she is to be taken to her father’s house and stoned to death. Again, stoned to death, for those believing the bible is the literal word of god. For all others, one must wonder what the passage is meant to signify if not literally true.

The admonition to kill morally errant women is difficult to fathom in modern times, but makes sense in the context of women as chattel. We cannot accommodate shifts in values in more modern times, however, if the bible represents His word. God’s word would know no time boundaries between past and present, so his proclamations are as good now as then. God says that women are dirty property, with little commercial value. He even offers a comparative price for a female specimen. The Ten Commandments make clear that a woman has no more value than an ox or a mule. We see this in what is perhaps the most frequently misunderstood phrase of all time: the commandment not to covet a neighbor’s wife is nothing to do with adultery, which is, in any case, covered elsewhere on the list. No, this commandment reads:

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant [male slave], nor his maidservant [female slave], nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

God simply tells us here that we should not covet our neighbor’s possessions, one of which happens to be his wife, of no greater value than his oxen. If the idea of women as property is still not clear enough, Exodus 21:7 allows a father to sell his daughter for cash if he needs extra income. By any standard, the sale of women is immoral, but that is exactly what the bible encourages, explicitly, not as an allegory.

Much is made by the religious in modern society about the immorality of homosexuality. In fact, the bible contains only one unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22, which proffers the odd language, “and with a male you shall not lay lyings of a woman.” Note what is missing here: the passage contains no prohibition against women having sex with other women. Lesbianism is never condemned in the bible. Modern bibles have expanded the original language to state that all homosexual acts by both men and women are forbidden, but that is just a contemporary fig leaf. The original language clearly refers to males only.

While killing is said to be prohibited as immoral, god-sanctioned murder is found throughout the Good Book. Fear of god’s wrath is the main reason for the multiple dozens of ceremonies leading to animal sacrifice, which are meant to prevent god from striking down sinners. Leviticus 16, in verses 1-34, describes in great procedural detail how to sacrifice bulls, rams and goats to atone for sins in order to avoid a premature death from a vengeful and jealous god. This is yet another passage where literal interpretation presents a dilemma. We do not see many churches today hosting goat sacrifices on Sunday, but that is exactly what the bible tells us to do. How dare we disobey the literal word of god!

The faithful will retort here that nailing Jesus to a cross became the ultimate sacrifice, making Old Testament rituals unnecessary. But that wishful thinking does not resolve any dilemma. One clearly cannot claim that only the New Testament is the literal word of god; the Old must be too, unless one admits Genesis is nothing but a fairy tale. In Old or New we know god cannot be wrong; god’s calls to action cannot have an expiration date or be modified by future events if he is truly omniscient. Therefore any claim that god’s demand for sacrifice is no longer required because of subsequent history calls into questions god’s fundamental powers. Either god is all-knowing and he really wants us to sacrifice goats; or he has limited powers; or the bible is not his literal word; or he does not exist. The common appeal to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as a means of explaining why we do not see more dead goats on Sunday is another example of religion offering two mutually incompatible ideas to solve a problem.

Perhaps all the blood and guts is restricted to the Old Testament? No, violence is found throughout the New Testament as well. Matthew 10:34 declares that Jesus is no man of peace. In his own words, Jesus says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace but a sword.” Some Christians try to explain that away as an anomaly, or to claim a meaning discordant with the words. But a violent Jesus is no fluke. In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus condemns entire cities to dreadful deaths and eternal damnation because the hapless citizens did not appreciate his sermons. In Mark 7:9-10, Jesus makes known that he supports the idea of killing children who disobey their parents. If sacrificing goats and bulls presented a problem for literalists, the admonition to bump off rambunctious children creates an even bigger conundrum. “Kill Your Disobedient Kid Day” is not a common event at most houses of worship. And yet that is the word of god, something literalists cannot explain away. For all others, any alternative interpretation of the words from Jesus will require considerable creativity to avoid the harsh reality of his New Testament utterances.

Family values, beyond the tenuous survival of children, suffer a violent end as well upon close scrutiny of god’s word. Matthew 10:21 informs us that Jesus will tear families apart, so that brother will kill brother, father will kill child, and children will kill parents, all of which is perfectly acceptable because loving Jesus is more important than loving family. In a final blow to family values, in Matthew 10:36, we learn that “a man’s foe shall be they of his own household.” Jesus tells us here that if we love our mother and father more than him, we are not worthy of his love. This does not exactly describe the Brady Bunch.

God does not offer himself up as a moral guiding light, but instead presents himself as wrathful and mean, a force to be feared rather than respected. That point is made repeatedly in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Luke 12:5 admonishes us to fear god specifically because he has the power to kill and torture us. John 3:36 emphasizes the point further, noting that if you do not believe in god, you will feel his wrath forever in hell.

Any document from which we derive moral guidance should at least be internally consistent, but the bible is replete with contradictory statements. Obvious problems such as “an eye for an eye” and “turn the other cheek” are often explained away as being a difference between Old and New Testament. But that fails completely as a clarification if the bible is the word of god. God cannot change his mind from Old to New even as his son takes center stage; otherwise god admits error in the orignal thought. Some apologists explain this particlar inconsistency by interpreting “eye for an eye” to mean we should always seek proportionate retribution in contrast to more than an eye for an eye. But this band-aid fails to hide the fact that any form of retribution is inconsistent with the idea of turning the other cheek. “Seek fair retribution” and “Don’t seek any retribution” are not compatible ideas. Period. No amount of artful contortions will explain away these blatant incongruities in the literal words of a being who must be perfect.

But such overt failures of logic as those relating to retribution or “coming in peace” in one passage, and then “not coming in peace but with a sword” in another are not even the most egregious type of inconsistency. The facts of the underlying story do not align. The bible cannot even get straight when Jesus was born. Matthew 2:1 and Luke 2:1-5 tell stories with completely different timelines about the birth of Jesus. If the bible were the word of god, would he not know the story of his own son’s birth?

This religious narrative of murder, rape, incest, fratricide, polygamy and sacrifice is proffered as the rationale for moral behavior in modern society. We can do better. Myths of a primitive nomadic society piled on empty threats and false promise, and then piled further atop crude fables are no basis for human morality in the 21st century. Whether the literal word of god, some form of allegory or a type of metaphor, the bible offers no credible advice on daily life and how to live our lives well. The bible is not a viable source document for moral teachings. Even the most cursory reading of the text reveals the bible to be nothing but a badly written story full of factual errors, inconsistencies and incongruities. The foundation on which religious morality is built is obviously fundamentally and fatally flawed. But religious leaders have a clever ploy to prevent close scrutiny by claiming blasphemy for any dissent or, in modern times, accusing doubters of intolerance. They must do so because the edifice will crumble if the founding document is examined too closely.

We are fortunate that these tactics did not stop great inquiring minds emerging from the Dark Ages, who knew well that the bible and religion more broadly offered no useful advice on human behavior. Those times did not tolerate heresy well, so the pioneers of enlightenment had to tread carefully. Those who did not paid the ultimate price. In 1619 the Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini was burned at the stake for merely suggesting that humans derived from apes, 250 years ahead of this time.

The first principles of a new moral code independent of religion to see the light of day can trace their lineage directly back to the moment when Spinoza drew “first blood” in 1670 upon publication of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Obvious now but radical then, Spinoza believed that with sufficient time and study, the universe could be fully understood as a “self-sufficient machine” with no role, place or room for god. Through objective study man could comprehend the ultimate mechanical principles of the universe without invoking the mysterious powers of an unknowable god. Knowledge would relegate the Almighty to the sidelines, unemployed. Spinoza boldly demoted the god of Abraham, who would finally join the venerable pantheon of discarded deities from the Incas, Mayans, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, leaving none in his place.

Great modern thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg continue that tradition by further strengthening the argument against purpose and design. Feynman in his usual understatement notes that, “the theory that [the cosmos] is arranged as a stage for God to watch man’s struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.” Like Dawkins, Weinberg notes that the more we know, the more pointless the universe is revealed to be.

Let’s summarize what we know. The bible offers no guidance on morality, and is nothing but a badly narrated story told in order to extract obedience from gullible masses. God either does not exist, or if he does, he is irrelevant. The universe is unguided, uncaring and without purpose or design. Where does that leave us? How can we be moral in a godless, pointless world? What is our motivation to be moral if not to please the Almighty? Those questions rest upon the false premises that morality derives from god and that something has been lost by letting go of god. So what then guides human morality?

Morality is our biological destiny. Traits that we view as moral are deeply embedded in the human psyche. Honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, kindness to others, and reciprocity are primeval characteristics that helped our ancestors survive. In a world of dangerous predators, early man could thrive only in cooperative groups. Good behavior probably strengthened the tribal bonds that were essential to survival. What we now call morality is probably a suite of behaviors favored by natural selection in an animal weak alone but strong in numbers.

By shedding the burden of a wrathful god, we reveal the power to create our own meaning, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. By rejecting the false premises of religion we are free to move beyond the random hand we are dealt at birth to pave our own road to a better life. We collectively have the opportunity to enhance our humanness, to further define who and what we are, by choosing to behave morally because we can. A true moral code is based on the principle that with the ability to choose to be good comes the obligation to make that choice; choosing to be moral is what makes us special. The act of choosing to live a good life is the foundation for all pleasure, peace and happiness. Whereas religion claims that happiness is found from submission to a higher power, a true moral code defines happiness as the freedom to discover within ourselves our inherent good, and then to act on that better instinct, not because of any mandate from god, but simply because that choice makes us more human, more special. Happiness, virtue and morality are possible with nothing more than what is within each of us. We need not and cannot appeal to any other authority.

With this personal freedom, of course, comes also the obligation for each of us to act wisely and responsibly. We fulfill this duty first by taking a more modest view of our place in the world. When we see that humans are a natural part of the ecosystem, not above or separate from the environment, we will protect the resources that sustain us. When we reject the hubris and conceit of religion, we will redefine our relationship with each other without calling upon god to smite our enemies. When we understand that true morality is independent of religious doctrine, we will create a path toward a just society. This is our guide to a full life in which we no longer accept the arbitrary and destructive constraints of divine interference. Humanity will be free only when the very idea of god is relegated to history’s dustbin. Until that time our species will remain slaves to a terrible ignorance.

TAGGED: CRITICAL THINKING, DEBATE POINTS, MORALITY, RELIGION