Part of the reason I am now Atheist...

[dudemanjones]

A snake talked? (Gen. 3:1-5) Really? They don't have voice boxes. Brilliant!

Every species of animal fit on the ark, a vessel with 96,000 sq ft of space and staffed with 8 primitive people (Insight on the Scriptures, pg. 164, par. 3). The 100-acre San Diego Zoo, staffed with roughly 1500 workers, many who have studied zoology all their lives, is able to care for a little over 800 of Earth's animal species, represented by 4000+ individual animals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Zoo). 100 acres translates into 4,356,000 square feet of space. The ark's square footage was less than 3% that of the San Diego Zoo and was supposed to house 800,000 species of animal and the food, water, and bedding needed to take care of them. Where did Noah put the feed? How did he manage the manure? How did he feed the predators? For example, the San Diego Zoo must grow 40 different varieties of Bamboo for their Pandas, 18 varieties of eucalyptus trees to feed its koalas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Zoo#Features). Those plants don't grow in the Middle East. Lionesses require 11 pounds per day of meat while male lions require 15 pounds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Hunting_and_diet). How many animals would have to be slaughtered a day to feed them? Wouldn't they run out of "clean animals" to feed to the big cats, bears, wolves, wolverines, mongooses, snakes, lizards, etc.? They didn't have refrigeration. It would either be live animals or 40 years of making jerky. Some predators won't eat anything but fresh meat. How would lungfish survive? How would fresh water fish and salt water fish survive in the new completely changed sea environment? Also, the livestock animals on the ark would have to be fed.

Insight on the Scriptures acknowledges evolution as fact; it is necessary to account for the biodiversity we see today having descended from the limited number of animals on the ark. On pages 164-165 under the subheading "Ample Carrying Capacity.", Insight on the Scriptures says, "With this in mind some investigators have said that, had there been as few as 43 “kinds” of mammals, 74 “kinds” of birds, and 10 “kinds” of reptiles in the ark, they could have produced the variety of species known today." How could that be? The insight Volume goes on to say "That the great variety of animal life known today could have come from inbreeding within so few “kinds” following the Flood is proved by the endless variety of humankind—short, tall, fat, thin, with countless variations in the color of hair, eyes, and skin—all of whom sprang from the one family of Noah." So here the Insight Volume acknowledges that sometimes genetic mutations cause beneficial changes, in this case caused by inbreeding. This is in direct contradiction to what was written in the Creation Book in Chapter 8, Paragraph 29: "The conclusion is clear. No amount of accidental genetic change can cause one kind of life to turn into another kind," and in Paragraph 31: "The truth is as Professor John Moore declared: “Upon rigorous examination and analysis, any dogmatic assertion . . . that gene mutations are the raw material for any evolutionary process involving natural selection is an utterance of a myth." Ironically, they underestimate the amount of time it takes for recessive genetic traits to become present in an entire population and force speciation.

A man split the red sea by holding out a rod? (Exodus 14:16)

A man's arms had magical powers over a raging genocide in front of him, enabling him to cause his army to win. When he didn't hold them up, the people he was trying to eliminate from the Earth gained the upper hand. God made the fate of Israel's army rest on the ability of an old man and his assistants to hold his arms up for hours. (Exodus 17:11)

How about a talking donkey? (Numbers 22:28)

How about a dead man's bones bringing another dead man back to life? (2Ki 13:20, 21)

How about a man bringing a young boy back to life by lying on top of him, with his mouth to the boy's mouth, his eyes to the boy's eyes, his palms to the boy's palms? How can this NOT be creepy? (2Kings 4:34)

Did you hear the one about the spinning, flaming sword in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were ousted? God invented the sword before the first murder ever happened. Sounds like something Napoleon Dynamite would make up. Nice! (Gen. 3:24)

Or Job: god lets his worst enemy completely ruin his best friend's life to prove a point: his best friend's loyalty would not waiver. Too bad god isn't as loyal! I don't know about you, I wouldn't let my worst enemy work over my best friend to prove how loyal he is to me. (Book of Job)

The Law of Moses specified that anyone committing adultery be stoned to death. (De. 22:22) In fact, two people who were having sex (an Israelite man and Midianite woman) were murdered, the woman through their genitals by Phin′e·has, a priest. This was an act of righteousness according to the bible as god stopped the scourge afterward. (Numbers 25:8) Yet, Israel's King David slept with a soldier's wife, got her pregnant, had him killed in battle, married the woman after her husband had been killed to cover up the adultery. (2 Samuel 11:1-12:24) In all of it, who does god punish? The child and David's sex slaves. God has David's son rape his sex slaves in violation of his own law prohibiting incest, rape and adultery. (2 Samuel 12:19; 16:22, Lev. 18:8) Does David get stoned to death? No. His house is in an uproar. Does Bath Sheba get stoned to death? No. The infant child who did nothing to deserve any of it dies. (2 Samuel 12:19) Do any of the soldiers who let Uriah get killed get punished? No. In fact, not only does god not punish any of the guilty parties with the same punishment meted out to the poor and in this case uninvolved, he rewards David and Bath-Sheba with a son who becomes the next king of Israel; Solomon. (2 Samuel 12:24) Both David and Bath Sheba are further rewarded by becoming ancestors to Jesus as is the apostate Solomon. (Matthew 1:6, 1 Kings 11:1-7)

Now, either god is crazy, inconsistent, and sadistic or he's made up by primitive dimwits who couldn't see the implications of what they wrote.


(edit for readability)

[RNewman123]

True,

Basing moral standards from bible standards makes people do strange things.
Old testaments send out wrong mesage altogether from today's standard.

and often bible was misused for that purpose.

Maybe the bible accounts should onlybe taken as evidence of injustice throughtout the history of mankind...

That would be my take on it.

[Borgia]

I asked several elders whether faith in Hebrews 10 was based on fact or not. They claimed it was fact. When I discussed the numbers about the quails, the gold used by Solomon to built the temple, the number of Israelites wandering through the desert in terms of logistics, it is very difficult for them to respond to that other than insisting on it having happened at written.

You made an excellent overview of the inaccuracy and disharmony of the stories. Very usable.

Cheers

Borgia

[aprilshowers75]

Thanks Dude! I love it!

[dudemanjones]

I edited this to make it more official looking and stuff.

[Stuart English XJW]

Yet there are people who believe that this is the word of God?

Dude - an excellant essay on the most ridiculous book ever written by man - LOVED IT!

[Gwirionedd]

The Old Testament has a very narrow focus, doesn't it? Namely the Middle East. Small wonder it's filled with Middle Eastern Bronze Age morality (or lack thereof). No mention is ever made about what was happening in other parts of the world - Europe, India and China, for instance. Could it be because the writers were ignorant of the existence of those countries? Perish the thought!

You've pretty much torpedoed the Ark out of the water! Hugely satisfying. And those 'miracles' beggar belief. One puny human holds up his arms and the sun and moon stand still. Yeah, right. Actually, I've done research on that one, which I've put on my blog, because I think it's so ludicrous. I was going to paste it in here, but it's probably a bit too long, so I'll open a new post with it.
I think its mainly what I read in the Old Testament that turned me off the Bible and made me leave the Lie. I was actually keeping up with the JW weekly Bible reading schedule, which had got back to the Old Testament again, and I was just appalled and sickened by what I was reading. Nothing but genocide and murder, wall to wall. It was the beginning of the end of my worship of the Hebrew war god.

[Stuart English XJW]

[quote="Gwirionedd"]The Old Testament has a very narrow focus, doesn't it? Namely the Middle East. Small wonder it's filled with Middle Eastern Bronze Age morality (or lack thereof). No mention is ever made about what was happening in other parts of the world - Europe, India and China, for instance. Could it be because the writers were ignorant of the existence of those countries? Perish the thought!

This has always made me think.

All that crap about Daniel and his interpretation of a statue, seen again by the "magic mushroom/LSD addict" Saint John in the book of Revelation - you know - the seven headed dragon with schizophrenia!

Think about the world powers, they simply were NOT!

Egypt, Babylon, Assyria etc - They never made it out of the Mediterranean Sea! The Med' is nothing compared to the open waters of the true oceans, world powers? More like localised mini-state warfare on the European/Asian boundaries.

Just think if God was a student!
Would this be his school report?

Geography - Failure
History - Failure
Biology - Total Failure
Religious Education - Banned from attending any further classes on this subject.

[Fugue]

Did you hear the one about the spinning, flaming sword in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were ousted? God invented the sword before the first murder ever happened. Sounds like something Napoleon Dynamite would make up. Nice! (Gen. 3:24)

I remembered seeing an explanation for this from the washtowel, so I looked it up on my wt library CD-ROM (apostate version). Here's what they say:

*** w94 2/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
After Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the garden, Jehovah prevented them from returning. How? Genesis 3:24 says: “He drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.” Notice, “the flaming blade of a sword.” Did God invent swords?
We need not conclude that our loving Creator was the first one to make what we know as swords. Adam and Eve saw turning in front of the angels something that was blazing. What exactly was it? By the time Moses wrote the book of Genesis, swords were well-known and used in warfare. (Genesis 31:26; 34:26; 48:22; Exodus 5:21; 17:13) So Moses’ words “the flaming blade of a sword” enabled his readers to visualize to a degree what existed at the entrance of Eden. The information known in Moses’ day contributed to the understanding of such matters. And the language Moses employed must have been accurate, for Jehovah had it included in the Bible.—2 Timothy 3:16.

So... Moses described the spinning thing as "the flaming blade of a sword" so that his readers, who were familiar with swords, could visualize it. And we have the trademark circular logic of the washtowel: "we KNOW it must be accurate, because j-ho included it in the bible."

But I don't get it. Moses didn't actually SEE what happened in the garden of Eden. He simply wrote down the story as it had been passed along to him. Where did the story originate? With those who actually saw The Spinning Flaming Thing That Was Not A Sword... Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, etc. Those eyewitnesses would have described it as A Spinning Flaming Thing, since they did not yet have swords to compare it to. If they had compared it to anything, they would have had to refer to objects they were familiar with... but they really didn't have much back then. They had some farming implements, so the original eyewitnesses could have described The Spinning Flaming Thing as looking, perhaps, like a Flaming Rake. Or, even simpler, a Flaming Stick. Of course, since it was hovering in place and spinning perpetually, it obviously was of the spirit realm, so it wasn't really a Flaming Rake, Stick, or Sword. It was, in truth, a miraculous Spinning Flaming Thing From The Spirit Realm. But... again, the eyewitnesses, who were our primary sources here, would have told the story and called it a Spinning Flaming Stick.

So the story gets passed along from generation to generation, and as mankind progresses, they eventually invent swords. And... interestingly, the story of The Spinning Flaming Thing changes. Whereas the eyewitnesses (primary sources) described it as a Spinning Flaming Stick (or Rake), the story is distorted to say that it looked more like a Sword. (Obviously, it did NOT look like a Sword to the eyewitnesses, who were our primary sources, because they had never heard of swords.)

So... now the story is no longer completely accurate. Somewhere, someone decided that The Spinning Flaming Thing looked more like a Sword than a Stick or Rake.

And here's where the washtowel shoots their own theory in the foot:

the language Moses employed must have been accurate, for Jehovah had it included in the Bible.

But it WASN'T accurate! The eyewitnesses (primary sources) would NOT have agreed that the Spinning Flaming Thing looked like a sword! They would have objected to that alteration in the story.

"I never said it looked like a SWORD," exclaims one very pissed off Abel, resurrected by j-ho and finally getting a chance to read Moses's account of his family's life. "Who the hell changed my story? I said it looked like a RAKE, not a f**cking SWORD!"



Yet... the washtowel says the story wasn't altered.



By the way, I am an atheist also. I don't believe a word of any of this bullshit. It's soooooooo easy to poke holes in virtually every story in the bible. It just takes a little bit of logic.

[dudemanjones]

Did you hear the one about the spinning, flaming sword in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were ousted? God invented the sword before the first murder ever happened. Sounds like something Napoleon Dynamite would make up. Nice! (Gen. 3:24)

I remembered seeing an explanation for this from the washtowel, so I looked it up on my wt library CD-ROM (apostate version). Here's what they say:

*** w94 2/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
After Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the garden, Jehovah prevented them from returning. How? Genesis 3:24 says: “He drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.” Notice, “the flaming blade of a sword.” Did God invent swords?
We need not conclude that our loving Creator was the first one to make what we know as swords. Adam and Eve saw turning in front of the angels something that was blazing. What exactly was it? By the time Moses wrote the book of Genesis, swords were well-known and used in warfare. (Genesis 31:26; 34:26; 48:22; Exodus 5:21; 17:13) So Moses’ words “the flaming blade of a sword” enabled his readers to visualize to a degree what existed at the entrance of Eden. The information known in Moses’ day contributed to the understanding of such matters. And the language Moses employed must have been accurate, for Jehovah had it included in the Bible.—2 Timothy 3:16.

So... Moses described the spinning thing as "the flaming blade of a sword" so that his readers, who were familiar with swords, could visualize it. And we have the trademark circular logic of the washtowel: "we KNOW it must be accurate, because j-ho included it in the bible."

But I don't get it. Moses didn't actually SEE what happened in the garden of Eden. He simply wrote down the story as it had been passed along to him. Where did the story originate? With those who actually saw The Spinning Flaming Thing That Was Not A Sword... Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, etc. Those eyewitnesses would have described it as A Spinning Flaming Thing, since they did not yet have swords to compare it to. If they had compared it to anything, they would have had to refer to objects they were familiar with... but they really didn't have much back then. They had some farming implements, so the original eyewitnesses could have described The Spinning Flaming Thing as looking, perhaps, like a Flaming Rake. Or, even simpler, a Flaming Stick. Of course, since it was hovering in place and spinning perpetually, it obviously was of the spirit realm, so it wasn't really a Flaming Rake, Stick, or Sword. It was, in truth, a miraculous Spinning Flaming Thing From The Spirit Realm. But... again, the eyewitnesses, who were our primary sources here, would have told the story and called it a Spinning Flaming Stick.

So the story gets passed along from generation to generation, and as mankind progresses, they eventually invent swords. And... interestingly, the story of The Spinning Flaming Thing changes. Whereas the eyewitnesses (primary sources) described it as a Spinning Flaming Stick (or Rake), the story is distorted to say that it looked more like a Sword. (Obviously, it did NOT look like a Sword to the eyewitnesses, who were our primary sources, because they had never heard of swords.)

So... now the story is no longer completely accurate. Somewhere, someone decided that The Spinning Flaming Thing looked more like a Sword than a Stick or Rake.

And here's where the washtowel shoots their own theory in the foot:

the language Moses employed must have been accurate, for Jehovah had it included in the Bible.

But it WASN'T accurate! The eyewitnesses (primary sources) would NOT have agreed that the Spinning Flaming Thing looked like a sword! They would have objected to that alteration in the story.

"I never said it looked like a SWORD," exclaims one very pissed off Abel, resurrected by j-ho and finally getting a chance to read Moses's account of his family's life. "Who the hell changed my story? I said it looked like a RAKE, not a f**cking SWORD!"



Yet... the washtowel says the story wasn't altered.



By the way, I am an atheist also. I don't believe a word of any of this bullshit. It's soooooooo easy to poke holes in virtually every story in the bible. It just takes a little bit of logic.

I was going to say Abel wasn't there to observe, but actually, according to the Blotchtower, the spinning, flaming sword was there apparently until the flood? Anyway, a little tiny bit of logic dispels the flood myth pretty quickly. One word: POOP! How did Noah and 7 others scoop up all that shit in a day, everyday, for a year? It's a miracle!

But thanks for pointing out more of the logical fallacy. Yeah, either it's accurate or it's not. It did use the words "Like a flaming sword" so it could be that people were drawing the wrong conclusion, you know, like 1975. But then you'd have to explain endemic species, which you cannot rectify with the bible. It is false. Period.