From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: "God is unfair" Bible passages.
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 04:49:52 GMT

In article <Bx8nwn.8q6@newcastle.ac.uk>, J.M.A.Gilman@newcastle.ac.uk (J.M.A. Gilman) writes:


>     The New International Version (trans. circa 1973-9) talks about 
> this passage in a different vein. The "little children" are now 
> "youths", and the bears now "maul" them. As this could JUST POSSIBLY
> be due to translational bias, trying to avoid "NASTY" passages, I
> had a go at the original ancient Hebrew (the original language in 
> which it was written & is translated from). It's not too hard using
> a Hebrew-English Interlinear Old Testament, and a Strong's concord-
> ance with all the word meanings in a dictionary at the back.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the NIV has toned down this
passage, I can point to numerous passages where this notoriously fundie
translation twists the language to try to get uncomfortable passages to
fit with fundamentalist orthodoxy.


>     The story of Elisha and the two bears therefore discusses the
> wounding of a number of male youths, possibly thugs, NOT the     
> slaughter of innocent little children. Knowing God, I'm sure that,    
> while he does deal out violence to people, it is always those who
> deserve punishment, and the lads in question probably got a well-
> deserved lesson in respect for the elderly.

What a load of shit! You yourself say that 'qaton' can mean anything from
a child to an adolescent. You then decide, on no basis whatsoever, that it
should mean 'male youths' simply because this makes your evil God look like
less of a vindictive bastard. Then you top that by claiming that
this fictional 'gang of youths' that you have created were 'possibly thugs'.
Finally, in a breathtaking display of circular argument, you claim that they
must have deserved punishment because your God is a good guy. Thus you 'prove'
that this was a just action by assuming that it was a just action!
Do you really wonder why we laugh at your religion?
By the way James, if I caught you being rude to an elder and decided to maul
you as a result, wouldn't you call the police and charge me with assault?
If you didn't, then you'd be an idiot. I suppose that's the advantage of being
a god, the cops can't find you after you've commited a grossly violent act of 
a criminal nature.
 
>     WHAT ABOUT LOT ?

>     Because Lot offers to let the gang outside have his virgin 
> daughters to do with as they please, Lot is seen as the vilest of
> hypocrites and God as an unfair mass-murderer of a city of innocent
> people. What REALLY happened becomes clear if one either reads a
> modern Bible translation or knows some old english colloquialisms.
> When the KJV says the Sodomites wanted to "know" the visitors, the
> expression means "know in a carnal sense". In other words, to have 
> sex with them, the subjects of this lust obviously NOT being given
> the option in this case to refuse.

Of course that's what 'know' means! Has anyone ever said it didn't?
The KJV was written in Early Modern English btw, if it was written in
Old English, I can assure you, you wouldn't be able to read it at
all. In soth, se ealde englisc reorde buth micel hearde to gecnaweth!

>     The Sodomites, therefore, were the most vile bunch of homosexual
> gang-rapists who ever walked this Earth.

Really? On what authority are you basing this sweeping generalisation? 


>     Sodom was a city, therefore, in which it was SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE
> for men of ALL SOCIAL STRATA INCLUDING "MORAL" (religious) and 
> "POLITICAL" LEADERS to FORCIBLY GANG-RAPE visitors who were NOT IN
> ANY WAY used to their practices or willing to experience such a
> horror.

Therefore it's okay for your Stalinist God to burn thousands of women, children
and elderly people was it? They were *all* totally evil, right? Yeah, I see
the blinding logic of that (not!)
But wait a second Jimmy, doesn't your odd little middle eastern cult have 
another weird and perverted concept called Hell, where your twisted God
tortures people for eternity for not kissing his celestial arse? Why didn't
he let the Sodmites die and then throw them in Hell? Then he could have judged
them on a case-by-case basis instead of punishing everyone equally harshly.
And did the wicked Sodomites go to Hell after they were so horribly burned?
If so, why were they punished twice? And why didn't your wonderful God sent
fire and brimstone to punish the SS in WW II, or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia?
Come to think of it, your Hilter-like God has been a bit sparing on the fire
from heaven in recent centuries. That's a bit odd isn't it?
Or perhaps, James old son, it's all a load of primitive bollocks and
you're wasting your bloody time trying to justify believing it.

> Lot, in contrast, at least tried to persuade them to stop, 
> and when he offered his daughters, it seems most unlikely they were
> virgins (as he claimed), given the moral tone of the city he had
> foolishly decided to live in in the first place.

Whoa! There you go reading in stuff that ain't there again. These are ancient
texts telling us an ancient (and unpleasant) legend. How you can use them
to make gynaecological assessments about the stae of the hymens on Lot's
daughters is quite beyond me. And let's get this straight, James: a pack of
guys turn up outside Lot's place and say 'We want to pork those handsome
dudes you've got staying with you.' Lot goes out and says, 'Hey, why not come
in and rape my virgin daughters instead.' And we are meant to believe that this
is okay?! If you ask me, if your strange, violent God had any sense of justice
at all he would have fried that low dog Lot as well. What a piece of slime!

>     ... AND CHILDREN SENT TO HELL ... ?
> 
>     Yet another misapprehension about God's judgment on the evil 
> cultures destroyed by the ancient Israelites or by God directly,
> is that the innocent children of the Sodomites, along with their 
> guilty parents, went STRAIGHT TO HELL, NO MORE CHANCES, BYE-BYE !

Actually, James-my-illogical-friend, I don't give a rancid rat's anus
that your perverted psychopath of a deity didn't send the innocent
babies to hell after he killed them so horribly. Imagine someone went
into the nursery at a major hopital with an AK-47 and gunned down a
few dozen infants and then said,'Hey, but it's okay, cause they won't
go to hell.' No, they won't go to Hell, but they also won't grow up,
fall in love, listen to beautiful music, discover new things or do
any of the other things which make human life so marvellous.
If your God were a human, he would be locked in a padded cell. 

>     IN SUMMARY :
>     In the case of Lot, God did NOT destroy a city of innocent people,
> they were a bunch of gang-rapists, and if atheists who want to attack 
> Christians bothered to read contemporary translations of the Bible, 
> they would not get mislead by confusing "Olde Englishe" expressions, 
> such as "know", which have changed colloquial meaning since the 
> Seventeenth century.

I read Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, New Testament 
Greek, and bits of Latin, Old Norse and Gothic. I've read the NT in
it's original language and hope to learn Hebrew so I can do the same
with the OT. Translation has bugger all to do with it, however you
translate (or, in your case, twist) these horrible stories, the fact 
remains that even if your strange semitic, tribal deity did exist,
he would be a monster of obscene proportions. You can worship this
vile creature, Jimmy old son, but he can go and fuck himself as far
as I'm concerned.

>     Could atheists who wish to denigrate Christianity please make
> EVERY effort to verify what is said in a particular Bible passage,
> as you not only mislead yourselves but others also by passing on
> SLANDEROUS ACCUSATIONS which have NO BASIS IN FACT. I understand
> most of you have no respect for the Bible passages I have quoted -
>  YOUR DECISION - but can you please be consistent - i.e. not claim
> the Bible to imply things which it in fact does not.

In the light of the mind-bending, twisted nonsense presented above,
this plea really is very funny. Thanks James, this was most amusing.

Tim O'Neill
Tasmanian Devil
Newsgroups: alt.atheism