God is a Dick – Part I: Eden
The Origin of Religion series has officially been cancelled due to poor ratings. I think of a comment as a vote for a post. Using that analogy, Origin of Religion couldn’t get elected dog catcher. The people have spoken (or chosen not to). Let’s move on.
I expect that this series will be much more popular. Each week, I will discuss a passage or story in which, as the title so eloquently puts it, god is a dick. In the beginning, these will all be Judeo-Christian examples, but I hope to include other religions later on. It is my hope that this endeavor will enlighten any theists who stop by and provide some prepackaged oratorical ammunition for the atheist base that frequents the site.
Where better to begin than “in the beginning”? After god creates man (the second time), he instructs Adam on the ground rules for life in Eden.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [GEN 2:16-17 KJV]
Some interesting questions are already raised here. Why does god not want Adam to know about good and evil? If he doesn’t want that, why put the tree there? If he’s omnipotent, why not stop Adam from eating of that tree? The deck is so seriously stacked against Adam, he doesn’t have a chance. Despite these problems, Adam follows the rules for a while. Then, god puts Adam to sleep and removes a rib from which to create Eve. There’s apparently some kind of raw material shortage in heaven. After Eve shows up, all hell breaks loose. Clearly god knows nothing about cryptography (an obscure reference at best).
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. [GEN 3:1-7 KJV]
Perhaps an omnipotent god seeking to keep secrets in the garden of paradise should have thought twice before creating crafty, talking serpents. At the very least, he should have realized that people deprived of the knowledge of good and evil will be terrible at following instructions. They don’t know it’s “wrong” to eat of the tree, because they don’t know what “wrong” is! These two have clearly been set up to fail. Unless god is a simpleton, he should have been able to see how this whole affair would end. For an omniscient being, it takes him quite a while to find out what happened, but when he does, he freaks.
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. [GEN 3:9-19 KJV]
Whoa. Thou shalt not piss god off. God punishes Adam for listening to his lifemate, made for him by god himself. He punishes Eve for not knowing the difference between right and wrong: the very thing he’s trying to keep from them. He punishes the serpent for telling the truth. My favorite part of this passage is when Eve, who now knows the difference between good and evil, tells the first (human) lie. She says that the serpent “beguiled” her. There are various shades of meaning for this word, but in this context, it clearly implies deceit. The serpent, though, told the complete truth. In fact, it was god who lied. Thou shalt surely die? I don’t think so. Now, remember the when the serpent told Eve that god was just afraid that she and Adam would become as gods?
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.[GEN 3:22-24 KJV]
Pretty incriminating. Who is god talking to, by the way? That’s a topic for another post.
Let’s review. God creates a couple of dupes. He places temptation right in front of them. He doesn’t allow them the capacity to know that giving in to temptation is wrong. He creates a serpent that tells them he’s been lying to them. He then punishes all of them always and forever and has to use a flaming sword to keep them from getting to his other secret tree, because if they did, they would be just like him. Dick.
~I AM~
P.S. Carnival of the Godless #16 is over on Positive Liberty.
June 26th, 2005 at at 10:32 pm
Heh. Very good. Just one warning about this series: Make sure that when you’re quoting the Bible, the passages aren’t very long. You’ll scare away or bore readers; I skimmed a lot of those passages.
I sense many enjoyable posts in the future…
June 26th, 2005 at at 10:46 pm
Yeah, I was worried about that. I don’t think I was liberal enough with the editing axe. I’ll keep them shorter next time.
June 26th, 2005 at at 11:33 pm
Just for the record, I disagree. Of course, I’m in the relatively unique perspective of having once believed those passages enough to believe men were short a rib. I am not proud of that, but I was a kid, and I grew up and learned to question. In part, I found my questions right within the text I’d be taught to trust… and I think, I Am, that you did an excellent job of using the Word of God against, well, the Word of God.
I also wonder how many Christians catch that “us” reference – and ignore it because it doesn’t fit with what they’ve been told is true. I’d like to ask the pastor where I went to church all those years ago to explain that away.
I’m also really pissed that god clearly didn’t tell the thorns they weren’t supposed to prick women. I already have to suffer monthly, and I’ll have to go through labor someday. I really think it sucks that I have to worry about being pricked, too. I really think Adam got off easy. Then again, that was the problem to begin with, wasn’t it?
June 26th, 2005 at at 11:54 pm
If I were God I would just kill off Adam and Eve and start over. But wait, God loves us all so dearly. Dearly enough that if we break these certain guidelines we will have to endure endless pain while God watches and laughs.
Uh oh, I think I probably pissed God off. I better go repent. -Pyro
June 27th, 2005 at at 12:18 am
Terrific! I love this kind of stuff. I’m tempted to e-mail it to all my brainwashed family members. Nah, they wouldn’t appreciate it. Can’t wait to read the next one. I’m sure you’ll never run out of material…
June 27th, 2005 at at 1:54 am
I like it. I’ve always thought that there was a huge difference between the OT YHWH and the NT God. I’ve always said that Jesus was the best Public Relations person ever.
But now I feel bad for not commenting more often on the origin of religion posts. Oh, well. I suppose this is an excellent topic too. But psychology and sociology are out, literary criticism is in.
Looking forward to Exodus. Ha ha.
June 27th, 2005 at at 1:55 am
Aw, I liked the origin of religion series you had going. This is great though. As addict_no_more said, I like how you use what God says against him.
Are you going to go through the whole bible with choice selections or what? Either way, it looks like it will be rather interesting… and funny too!
June 27th, 2005 at at 5:29 am
Vote 1: “I Am”.
New lurker de-lurking.
This looks much like the kind of thing which should be turned into a non-tract and distributed to tract distributors and friends who’ve seen so much light that they’re overly dazzled. Please consider me appreciative of these posts; many thanks.
June 27th, 2005 at at 6:25 am
If nothing else, this series should get you some hate mail! I love it!
June 27th, 2005 at at 9:42 am
This is great. I can’t wait to read more of this series. And thanks for putting pressure on us lurkers to comment in order to keep the series we like. Troff, your non-tract idea is brilliant. You should change your name to the AntiChick.
June 27th, 2005 at at 11:13 am
I always enjoy a good thrashing of the Bible. Add another vote to keep this series around!
June 27th, 2005 at at 12:05 pm
This is very well written. Clever and skillfully analyzed. I have been a big fan of criticizing Genesis, and Im fairly familiar with the contradictions contained in it, but you pointed out a few that I hadnt noticed before. Well done!
Funny that God has a tree of life that would force him to allow humans to live forever. Funny that God creates humans in his image, but only after they eat from the tree of knowledge that they “shall be as Gods” and even funnier is that God says that if they eat from the tree of life that they should be “as one of us” (are there multiple Gods?)
Why doesnt Satan eat from those trees? If he wants to be God himself, it seems thats all he has to do, right?
June 27th, 2005 at at 12:49 pm
Let me ‘vote’ against. FWIW, trashing the Bible is a waste of breath. Why add to the incomprehensibly vast amount of secondary literature devoted to tedious analysis of that worthless text? It’s all been done before a hundred times.
Of course, if it’s “ratings” you want, then have at it. I’m sure the Christ-haters will eat it up. However, I’d be more interested in a more positive discussion about the relative merits of an atheistic worldview. You call yourself the Evangelical Atheist, so talk about atheism, not religion.
June 27th, 2005 at at 1:32 pm
I enjoyed this article, and then I read Kooz’s comment, and I have to say that I agree somewhat.
I wouldn’t vote to strike this series down, because it is fun, and judging by the comments, most people enjoy it. However, I’d guess 99% of your readership is already pretty on board with this type of thinking, so we aren’t learning much new. Maybe this could be an occasional series?
What I’d really like to see is some discussion about how to actually BE an evangelical atheist. Should we start going door to door with something like the flier on Hank Fox’s site? Just talk with our friends about what we think? Get involved in local politics? Create more atheist friendly blogs? I for one, don’t know where to start.
June 27th, 2005 at at 3:15 pm
I like where this new series is going. Bible study is my weakness. I find it difficult to read such a horrible book on its own. Adding your commentary helps me to digest it. I also wondered if you would consider moving the origin of religion series over to atheismonline. I am very interested in it, and would hate to see you give up on it. Kooz does have a point in that this series on bible study isn’t necessarily a new idea, but why not do it? I do think Kooz and many of your other readers are chomping at the bit for a more indepth treatment of evangelical atheism, though. Adam put it best: “What I’d really like to see is some discussion about how to actually BE an evangelical atheist”. I was planning on covering evangelistic atheism at atheismonline, but it will be a long time before I get to it. Besides, it does seem more appropriate for the evangelical atheist to get this ball rolling. This subject has been poorly treated so far, and I think it is very important to go indepth with it if we are to consider seriously spreading atheism.
June 27th, 2005 at at 3:20 pm
Very entertaining. There is very little of this type of enterainment geared towards atheists. I cant wait t read more
June 27th, 2005 at at 3:36 pm
When you get to it, make sure you include the one about God wanting to send an army to rape women for punishment (Zech. 14:2). That’s my favorite.
In true Trinitarian fashion, will “Jesus is a Dick” be part of your “God is a Dick” discussion or does he merit his own. Everyone seems to give Jesus a free pass in these discussions. He’s the one that introduced the whole hell thing. At least God only killed (or raped) you, your kids, and your animals. Jesus let’s God kill your body and then sends you to eternal hell. And what about that whole sending-the-demons-into-pigs thing? Did Jesus hate animals too.
(I just found all of you atheist bloggers. I’m starting a new series on my site on the topic of atheism, that I’d love to get reactions to.)
June 27th, 2005 at at 3:38 pm
It’s all right there up at the start of the book. I mean, at least when they were culling the “Superman is a Dick” archives, they really had to go to some obscure nth-generation comic book ripoffs.
June 27th, 2005 at at 4:17 pm
It’s times like this (when we’re all ridiculing the Bible) when I wonder how the cheese monotheism has become so popular. Polytheism makes so much more sense; you don’t have all the paradoxes of omni-whatnots when you have specialized gods!
Of course, it is incredibly stupid anyways, but geez, monotheism is so much more asinine. Monotheists must seriously be lacking something in their brains…
June 27th, 2005 at at 4:56 pm
I think some good points have been raised here. I want to specifically reply to Kooz. “Of course, if it’s ‘ratings’ you want, then have at it.” It IS ratings I’m after to some degree. Your message is unimportant if no one’s listening. I’m not suggesting that this is a new format for the blog, just one component. If I do this one day a week, there are still six other days in which to cover more substantial material. Even Yahweh gets to kick back once a week.
“You call yourself the Evangelical Atheist, so talk about atheism, not religion.” I think the only way to promote atheism is to show the folly of religion. Deconversion to Atheism is giving up religion. It’s not really adopting something new. Your point, though, is well taken. Posts about evangelizing atheism are in development.
I really appreciate this kind of feedback, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I want everyone to enjoy the site, but I also want to make sure we all take something away with us.
June 27th, 2005 at at 7:11 pm
I AM,
I would like to mention that “God is a Dick” series IS in fact atheistic evangelizing. It is taking specific examples of God belief(s), and explaining how they all amount to an inferior moral system from a God. Furthermore, it shows that this supposed God, if he did exist, would not be worthy of worship. God can be rejected based on our own internal moral codes, and pointing out his asshole-tendencies is a great way to do it.
What you are doing in this series I AM, is judging Gods actions by your own moral code, and in doing so, showing the superiority of your moral code to Gods egotistic, insecure megalomaniacal dictates.
You cant effectively argue the merits of a human-centric, reason-based moral code without comparing and contrasting it against the religious moralities we are fighting against. So keep doing it!
June 27th, 2005 at at 8:34 pm
Aaron said exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the comments, and frankly, he said it far more eloquently than I was going to
. If you don’t know – and have good, solid arguments against – the religious texts you oppose, you can’t criticize them effectively. I realize that the easiest people to “deconvert” will be agnostics, since they aren’t really sure what they believe (or if), anyway. However, having gone through the agnostic phase as a former intensely devoted follower, I will say that an argument like this one would really have been helpful in helping me to realize what I was leaving behind.
I very much believe being able to articulate a lot of these arguments concisely and eloquently (as I Am has done) IS a big part of being an Evangelical Atheist. Don’t mistakenly assume that just because someone has decided they are an atheist that means they’ve educated themselves in the religions of the world. Boywonder makes my point clear when he says that he hasn’t been able to deal with reading the Bible himself.
And Seth, I’ve been wondering for years why monotheism is so popular, too. Polytheism does seem to be the more logical of the illogical.
June 27th, 2005 at at 10:12 pm
I hope to see you on the Today Show sometime in the near future!
June 28th, 2005 at at 2:30 am
I guess I’m in the Kooz camp. The whole ‘if we take what the Bible says literally then look at what it would mean’ approach seems to me to be a pointless discussion. Is this red meat you throw to your readers so that they can vicariously bash the literalists with their own material? Surely, mocking their holy scripture is not about to win the fundamentalists over.
The same goes with the discussion ‘look at all the mean things it says Yahweh did’ that is sure to follow.
We are dealing here with a document that many purport to be literal history, and I would rather see your series address the errors in this
representation. You might also go into the origins and history of the scriptures themselves, shedding light on the origins of contemporary religion.
June 28th, 2005 at at 5:48 am
Whatever happened to the idea that we were created by a powerful but imperfect god who doesn’t care if we realize he exists or not? Could we not just be a lab project on god’s worktable in diety biology 101?
If that is true, I wonder what grade he got on our universe. I think it deserves an A
June 28th, 2005 at at 11:37 am
C Ray 86, I believe that is called “deism”.
And if it is true, then I would say that the deistic God created a set of life forms that are more moral than He is.
July 1st, 2005 at at 10:32 am
The Problem of Evil begins right from the first page of Genesis. I’ve always thought that the Eden story displayed a moral fault on the part of God–evil happens hecause he allows it. If God is omniscent, he would have known that the serpent would tempt Eve. If God is omnipotent, he would have had the power to keep Eve from taking the fruit. Eve takes the fruit. So, is God omniscent and/or omnipotent? If he isn’t, then why worship an inferior god? If he is, then we must conclude that God allowed Eve to take the fruit. Why would God do this? If God is omnipotent, then he would have known the consequences, and clearly he must have wanted those consequences.
July 1st, 2005 at at 6:52 pm
[...] ard goes to The Evangelical Atheist. Why? (Content Warning) Just check out the title to this post. Yeah. Plus, he signs all of his posts ~ I AM ~ [...]
July 2nd, 2005 at at 3:49 pm
1. God is not a dick. God is not. Yes, I’m splitting hairs here. [The gods folks believe in, however....]
2. Monotheism is simple. You have one father to rule over his family, one king to rule over his land and one god to rule them all. The relationships of the various gods in polytheisms are much more complicated and, worse, shifting (this is a big post-history issue.) Monotheism is better as a dead religion, (relatively) static and traditionalist.
2a. Also polytheism is very popular. It was probably stronger before mass written histories (why bother to keep things constant if you’re the only one who can read?) but I’m sure there are more polytheists than monotheists… just not in the U.S.
2b. It just depends on what you want, static and traditionalist or fluid and broad.
2c. Or neither. Duh.
July 2nd, 2005 at at 9:39 pm
Just to clafify: The “us”, God talking to himself, refers to the trinity – father son and holy ghost. If you read all of Genesis, you will find other references. I’ve got a lot more to refute on this post, but unfortunately don’t have the time. Maybe later.
July 2nd, 2005 at at 9:48 pm
mountmccabe:
God, the fictional character, is a dick in the same sense that Sherlock Holmes is a genius. Your point is well taken, however. It’s best to clarify.
Michelle:
Actually, no. The “us” is Yahweh talking to the other gods which were worshipped in the area at the time and which are referenced frequently throughout the OT. In fact, there are a couple of spots where it’s specifically mentioned that people moving to other areas start to worship local gods. I hope your other arguments are more solid than this.
October 30th, 2007 at at 8:53 am
life with derek the bet cast…
strangling sumptuous?confusers:tuple!…