Category Archives: The bad book

The Story of Balaam’s Ass—
God Can't Make Up His Mind

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The Israelites wanted to peacefully pass through the country of the Amorites on the way to Canaan. But the king of the Amorites wouldn’t let them, because God made him stubborn. So to punish the king for what God had made him do, the Israelites murdered all the Amorites, stole all their possessions, and took over their land. When Balak king of Moab found out about this, he was terrified of Israel. So he decided to hire Balaam, a prophet of God, to curse God’s chosen people. Great idea, Balak. /s

Balak sent messengers to Balaam to ask him to come and weaken the Israelites so Moab could defeat them, but God told Balaam not to do that, so the messengers returned to Balak without him. Then Balak sent more messengers to Balaam and offered him a large reward for cursing Israel. For some reason, “God” changed his mind and said Balaam should go with them this time.

So Balaam got on his donkey and started to go with the messengers to see Balak. But when God saw that Balaam was going with them after he had told Balaam he should go with them, God was very angry. So God tried to get Balaam to stop by putting an invisible angel in his way. Balaam’s donkey could see the angel standing in the road with a sword, so the donkey turned away from the road. Balaam beat his donkey to get it to get back on the road.

Then while Balaam was on a narrow path between two walls, the donkey saw the angel again, and it crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall. Balaam beat his donkey again, but there was nowhere the donkey could go, so it lay down, and Balaam kept beating it with his staff.

Then God enabled the donkey to talk, so it could tell him that it had a good reason not to keep walking, and that he had no good reason to beat it. God also enabled Balaam to see the angel. The angel told Balaam that he was being reckless by going down the straight and narrow path to meet Balak, and that if his donkey hadn’t turned away, the angel would have killed Balaam, but spared the donkey.

Balaam said he had sinned by going with Balak’s men when God had told him to go with Balak’s men. He was going to go back home, but the angel that had been sent to stop him from going to meet Balak told him to keep going and meet Balak.

Continue reading The Story of Balaam’s Ass—
God Can’t Make Up His Mind →
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Is only God immortal?

Contradictions

Yes.

The Bible says God alone is immortal. Humans can’t live forever, because they didn’t eat from the tree of life, because God didn’t want them to. He made us mortal, limiting our lifespans, because he didn’t want to have to deal with us forever. And since God never changes his mind and nothing he does can ever be changed, we will definitely always be mortal.

Everyone sins, so everyone has to die. No one can redeem anyone’s life and convince God to let them live forever. No one can even choose the time of their own death. Death happens to everyone on earth, no matter how wealthy or wise they are. Death is the destiny of everyone. All people return to dust, like withering grass.

One day God will wipe out all mankind from the earth. Then after God creates a new and better world, where people live longer, even then people will still die. And people who have died never come back to life, either. Dead people stay dead forever.

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Marriage partners the Bible doesn’t forbid

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I’ve previously published a list of people the Bible doesn’t say you can’t have sex with. Since it’s possible to have marriage without sex and vice versa, I’m now also making a separate list of some of the people the Bible doesn’t say you can’t marry.

As before, please keep in mind that by including something on this list, I am not necessarily saying it should be forbidden, nor am I necessarily saying it should not be forbidden. I am including both acceptable matches and unacceptable matches in this list.

As far as I can tell, there are no rules in the Bible1 against marrying…

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Who was Achan’s father?

Contradictions

After the Israelites destroyed Jericho, killed almost everyone living there, and stole all their valuables, God got angry and decided to abandon his people and stop protecting them. Not because he didn’t approve of the massacre or anything, but just because one guy, Achan, had stolen some of the stolen goods, which God had intended to keep for himself for some reason. Shortly after that, God decided he didn’t mind his people keeping the plunder for themselves after all. But not before having Achan and his innocent children stoned and burned.

So that’s who Achan is, but who’s his father?

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The Story of the Water from the Rock—
Why Moses was Banned from the Promised Land

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Moses brought the Israelites to a place called Meribah. They couldn’t find any water to drink there, because it was a desert, so they complained to Moses. The Israelites had been in the same situation here in Meribah before, and God had told Moses to hit a rock with his staff. When he did, water had come out of it.

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Why Moses was Banned from the Promised Land →
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Should people always trust?

Contradictions

Yes.

The Bible says if you don’t have love, you’re nothing, and it says one of the characteristics of love is to always trust. It says when you pray, you should trust absolutely that God will give you what you ask for. Otherwise, you’re an uncertain, unreliable person, and your prayer won’t do you any good. Jesus thought his disciples were foolish for not fully trusting everything the prophets said.

This all goes along with the principle of faith, since one aspect of faith is complete trust. And the Bible generally presents faith as a good thing. Yet there are also quite a few passages that say it’s not always good to trust…

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The Story of the Mutiny Against Moses—
Bring it On, On

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Moses and Aaron had brought the Israelites out of Egypt, a land flowing with milk and honey where they had prospered, and had left them to die in the wilderness. So 250 men of Israel, led by Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On, came together to oppose them. These men said Moses and Aaron shouldn’t have authority over the rest of the people, because all of Israel was holy. Moses told these men to appear with Aaron before the Lord, and said God would decide who was or wasn’t holy. So they all gathered in front of the tent of meeting.

God told Moses and Aaron to stand back so he could destroy the rest of the Israelites. Moses and Aaron reminded God, once again, that he shouldn’t do that, because not all of them had sinned. So instead, God had Moses tell the rest of the Israelites to stand back so he could destroy Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the rebel leaders.

Moses announced that if the earth opened up and swallowed those men, that would be a sign that God had appointed Moses to lead Israel. Then the earth opened up and swallowed Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and their innocent wives and children. God also killed the 250 rebels with fire. But the other rebel leader, On, wasn’t killed. So he must have been a holy leader chosen by the Lord, just like Moses and Aaron. On was never mentioned again.

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Bring it On, On →
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Will the heavens and earth last forever?

Contradictions, ,

Yes.

The Bible states that God has established the earth and the heavens forever. The earth’s foundations are everlasting, and it will remain forever. The Bible equates “forever” with “as long as the heavens endure“.

People who die can expect to stay trapped beneath the earth forever, which is only possible if the earth exists forever. Also, Christians who die can expect to go to live in an eternal house in heaven, where they will enjoy the everlasting inheritance that’s being kept for them there.

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Irrationality in the Bible

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Superstition

The Bible claims that random decision generators like dice are controlled by God and should be treated as infallible. That’s how the Bible encourages people to answer important questions, like whether someone is guilty of breaking the law. That or perform other silly rituals, like making people drink dirty water, and wishing for the water to harm them, but only if they’re guilty.

Another Bible-approved way to answer hard questions is to ask priests or prophets. (Or you can follow Paul’s example and just assume your own dreams are telling you about something real.) The priests are to be treated as infallible and always unquestioningly obeyed. And anyone who thinks the priests might not be so perfect is to be killed.

The Bible makes fun of superstitious people consulting fortune-tellers and divination instruments… and then advises them to consult these other fortune-tellers and divination instruments instead. It also makes fun of people praying to worthless pagan gods instead of the Bible-approved God. But I think you’ll find you get pretty much the same results no matter which entity you try asking for help or answers.

The Bible claims that seeking God is all you have to do to fully understand what’s right. It tells both kings and commoners to obsessively follow all its terrible rules, and indoctrinate their children with them. And it’s portrayed as a good thing when a foreign king decides to kill or otherwise punish his subjects if they don’t obey the biblical laws.

The Bible claims that curses are only effective when they’re deserved. This is the kind of thing that leads people to falsely think unfortunate people must be getting what they deserve. It discourages people from trying to either identify or fix the real cause of the problem.

The Bible blames mental health problems on “evil spirits“. And it commands sick people to seek help from religious authorities, rather than doctors. Jesus does say the sick need a doctor, but that’s just a metaphorical way of referring to himself. The Bible portrays the care of actual doctors as useless and the wrong choice, claiming that human help is worthless. It threatens people with curses and destruction if they rely on anyone but God for help. But in reality, it’s religious healings that are useless and the wrong choice.

Anti-intellectualism

The God of the Bible seems to hate it when humans are smart. When he created humans, the first thing he told them they must not do was to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge, which would give them wisdom. God thinks wisdom and knowledge are useless. When he sees intelligent people, he kills them or turns them into fools, because he likes them better that way.

God also seems to hate seeing humans make any technological progress. When he saw that people were developing better construction techniques so they could make an unprecedentedly tall building, God wasn’t happy with them. He didn’t want people working together and figuring out ways to do amazing new things. So he put a stop to that project by restricting their ability to communicate.

Then when God had people build things for him later on, he wouldn’t let them use any tools. He threatens to punish people just for using fire to help them see. He’d rather they blindly trust him as they walk in the dark.

Paul made a point of intentionally becoming foolish and ignorant when he preached. He demonized philosophy and taught his followers that it was futile to try to be wise or knowledgeable. Even Solomon claimed that investigating deep questions is somehow not honorable, that you shouldn’t rely on your own understanding, and that gaining wisdom and knowledge is pointless and only brings sorrow3 and death. Why do these people hate wisdom and thinking so much? Probably because they realize that that kind of thing can lead people to see how wrong the Bible is.

The Bible says you should respond to foolishness with similar foolishness. Why? Because otherwise, the fool will think he’s wise. But that would only be a bad thing because he currently isn’t in fact wise. Thinking you’re wise isn’t inherently a bad thing, as the Bible claims it is. That would mean people would need to be either foolish or wrong, and people should be neither of those things. So how about educating the fool and feeding him wisdom instead of more foolishness? If you help him become wise, then he’ll be right to think he’s wise. But if you live by the Bible, you’re not allowed to even point out foolishness.

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