More God Delusion

In “The God Delusion”, I’m up to the part where Dawkins argues that the Bible, particularly the OT, isn’t really used by anyone as an absolute basis for his morality. He points out that folks cherry pick which parts to accept as moral instructions and which to ignore and that they do this on the basis of some extra-Scriptural moral reasoning.

I’m grateful that nobody follows the letter of the OT. There’d be a lot of stoning.

I suspect that some folks actually come up with a moral position and then find some support for it in the OT. Someone who found homosexuality disgusting could find plenty of references to use against it. So could someone who was against wearing blended fabrics.

Dawkins points out that many of the leading Bible characters weren’t exactly good role models and that they aren’t much of a guide as to how to live. Take Abraham, for example. He marries his half sister. On two occasions he sort of lies and says she is his sister, not his wife, so that she ends up in the harems of other men. Then he sleeps with her servant and gets a child by her, and he abandons both the servant and the child in the wilderness. On top of that, he was ready to murder his other son, Isaac, before God let on that He was only pulling Abraham’s chain about sacrificing his son.

Take Lot, Abraham’s nephew. When the Sodomites come to his house looking to bugger the angels who were visiting him, he offers his virgin daughters to them. (A similar story is related later about a Levite and his concubine, except that the concubine dies from the gang rape to which she was subjected.) Later, Lot gets so drunk that he doesn’t realize that he is copulating with his own daughters and impregnating them.

I find the OT all but useless as a source of spiritual guidance. I like the Psalms and Proverbs, but the rest of it does nothing for me. The God that is depicted in the OT is nothing like the God of grace that gave us Jesus.

Also, as the firstborn son in my family, I don’t much like the recurring theme where younger sons end up with the birthright and inheritance in place of the rightful heir. That’s just wrong.

Let me close with a part of Genesis that was somehow left out: “God said unto Adam, ‘I shall make thee a helpmeet perfect in every way and eager to satisfy thine every need and to anticipate thine every desire.’ Adam spake unto the Lord,'How much is that going to cost me?’ 'An arm and a leg,’ replied God. And Adam asked,' what can I get for a rib?’”