“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
In Dawkin’s The God Delusion, he makes the obvious argument that this self-proclaimed ‘good god’ is not actually any real good–in fact–this god seems to be denying precisely what he is and does. Assuming that this higher power exists, the god of the Bible, specifically the god of the Old Testament, radiates evil. He allows, some would argue condones, slavery, rape, incest, baby killing and racial and sexual discrimination. Is it a coincidence that said beliefs and principles seem rather aptly fitting of the practices of that time period? No. Voltaire was way ahead of the game when he was quoted saying “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” The god of the Jews is nothing but an excuse for the hatefully brainwashed to detest and oppress those who they view are of
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However, most are not honest in that regard, offering a trite “you just have to have faith” as the basis to end a debate. The issue here is not many agnostics and atheists have faith in any sky-god, let alone the god of the Jews. All religions are heavily based upon faith versus fact, and that is a slippery slope. “Faith can be very, very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong. More generally, as I shall repeat in Chapter 8, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.” –Richard Dawkins, The God