One is the looniest number
What kind of mess do we make with monotheism? I ask that question because I don't think many people give it much thought. One god is easy, I suppose; you only have one name to remember, anyway. But he's lonely and there's that sticky subject of where one lone god came from. But aside from that, when we create a single god to hang our fears on, he ends up being a lunatic. He has to. We can't blame the lonely god for needing to be angry, loving, jealous, petty, expansive, omniscient, lacking foresight, piteous, and pitiable. He has no choice. We made him that way.
Consider Yahweh. Job is regarded by scholars as the oldest book in the Bible... and what do we get in the book of Job? Some very interesting stuff, with hints of polytheism. God is the book, having a conversation with Satan; it's an amiable conversation between beings that are far beyond human understanding. Satan makes a friendly wager with God and they proceed to torture some wealthy, pious man to see if he'll curse God. Kinda goofy, isn't it? God treats people like playthings in this book... oh, and it should be noted that wealth is a sign of God's blessing, not poverty as what comes much later in history.
This manipulation of humans is shown again with Abraham and his son, Isaac. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son; Abraham, being a good fanatic, does so with gusto. God stops him with something like "only kidding" and informs Abraham that his faith was just being tested. Carry on.
Nice, huh? I'll skip and hop over when Yahweh became a war god, ordering Moses, David, and Solomon to go about and slaughter people who worshiped other gods. Not to mention Yahweh's blatant disregard for women, particularly virgin women -- whose sole purpose seemed to be for the pleasure of men. Nice of God to look out for us like that, huh? He even gave them boobies. I like that.
Let's forget for a moment that women do the actual life-bringing duties and from a biological standpoint, it's pretty clear that the female form came before the male form. (How about those nipples, guys? Have much for use for them other than hooking up to a car battery during sex? I didn't think so.) And the XX chromosome pairing is more stable than the man's XY -- which leads to more mutations in men and shorter lifespans. But I digress. Since when are religious folks bothered with details? Poppycock!
That brings us to the later Yahweh -- the New Testament Yahweh -- the loving, caring, coddling, piteous god who suddenly sees poverty and being pathetic as virtues. Since the poor folks always outnumber the rich folks, that gave Yahweh's church a kick in the ass. Jesus, God's only son, became the poster boy.
Is it just me, or is this "only son" business sound like a bunch of crap. Even as a child, I thought this was nonsense -- and I was raised in a Christian household by people who appeared to believe this. He's a god. He can have all the kids he wants. People get sad about this "only child" bullshit; that amazes me. Yahweh is reputed to be omniscient, so what's with the crocodile tears? Even if you're sad for Jesus, you must believe he's OK now. In fact, part of the Christian belief is that he'll come back and kick all of our asses -- except those who went to church, and ate fish on Fridays, and took part in a little cannibalistic ritual once a month (communion) -- or not, depending on your flavor of Christianity. Imagine the headache of sorting out all that. And think that the divine being that created the infinity of the universe really gives a shit what kind of food you ate on what day. Yikes! Talk about micro-management.
So what's the alternative to worshiping a single, obviously deranged, god? There's always no belief at all. I'm of the mind that if there is a creator or creators, I can't imagine them giving a shit about every little thing we do. In fact, I can't imagine them favoring people who refuse to use the feature that makes us uniquely human: critical thought. If he or they bestowed this on us, isn't it a terrible shame not to use it? We might as well just remained ignorant animals. How petty those deities must be to turn their attention away from the trillions of other planets and get angry about Steve having sex with Bob. We're intelligent enough to take care of ourselves. If you believe in a deity, certainly you must admit that we have been created for autonomy. Creating intelligent puppets just frustrates everyone, puppet and puppet master.
The other alternative is polytheism. It covers all the bases. War can be angry all the time; Famine can be a sadistic bastard; Love can be lusty and doe-eyed. There's no need to lump this into one unfortunate soul. And with polytheisms, they can give birth to other gods. They can come from somewhere. Christians frequently pose the question to atheists, "Well, where did all this come from? It had to come from somewhere?" They don't think their god came from anywhere, yet the universe needs an origin. Crazy. The apple doesn't fall far from the celestial tree, apparently.
Consider Yahweh. Job is regarded by scholars as the oldest book in the Bible... and what do we get in the book of Job? Some very interesting stuff, with hints of polytheism. God is the book, having a conversation with Satan; it's an amiable conversation between beings that are far beyond human understanding. Satan makes a friendly wager with God and they proceed to torture some wealthy, pious man to see if he'll curse God. Kinda goofy, isn't it? God treats people like playthings in this book... oh, and it should be noted that wealth is a sign of God's blessing, not poverty as what comes much later in history.
This manipulation of humans is shown again with Abraham and his son, Isaac. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son; Abraham, being a good fanatic, does so with gusto. God stops him with something like "only kidding" and informs Abraham that his faith was just being tested. Carry on.
Nice, huh? I'll skip and hop over when Yahweh became a war god, ordering Moses, David, and Solomon to go about and slaughter people who worshiped other gods. Not to mention Yahweh's blatant disregard for women, particularly virgin women -- whose sole purpose seemed to be for the pleasure of men. Nice of God to look out for us like that, huh? He even gave them boobies. I like that.
Let's forget for a moment that women do the actual life-bringing duties and from a biological standpoint, it's pretty clear that the female form came before the male form. (How about those nipples, guys? Have much for use for them other than hooking up to a car battery during sex? I didn't think so.) And the XX chromosome pairing is more stable than the man's XY -- which leads to more mutations in men and shorter lifespans. But I digress. Since when are religious folks bothered with details? Poppycock!
That brings us to the later Yahweh -- the New Testament Yahweh -- the loving, caring, coddling, piteous god who suddenly sees poverty and being pathetic as virtues. Since the poor folks always outnumber the rich folks, that gave Yahweh's church a kick in the ass. Jesus, God's only son, became the poster boy.
Is it just me, or is this "only son" business sound like a bunch of crap. Even as a child, I thought this was nonsense -- and I was raised in a Christian household by people who appeared to believe this. He's a god. He can have all the kids he wants. People get sad about this "only child" bullshit; that amazes me. Yahweh is reputed to be omniscient, so what's with the crocodile tears? Even if you're sad for Jesus, you must believe he's OK now. In fact, part of the Christian belief is that he'll come back and kick all of our asses -- except those who went to church, and ate fish on Fridays, and took part in a little cannibalistic ritual once a month (communion) -- or not, depending on your flavor of Christianity. Imagine the headache of sorting out all that. And think that the divine being that created the infinity of the universe really gives a shit what kind of food you ate on what day. Yikes! Talk about micro-management.
So what's the alternative to worshiping a single, obviously deranged, god? There's always no belief at all. I'm of the mind that if there is a creator or creators, I can't imagine them giving a shit about every little thing we do. In fact, I can't imagine them favoring people who refuse to use the feature that makes us uniquely human: critical thought. If he or they bestowed this on us, isn't it a terrible shame not to use it? We might as well just remained ignorant animals. How petty those deities must be to turn their attention away from the trillions of other planets and get angry about Steve having sex with Bob. We're intelligent enough to take care of ourselves. If you believe in a deity, certainly you must admit that we have been created for autonomy. Creating intelligent puppets just frustrates everyone, puppet and puppet master.
The other alternative is polytheism. It covers all the bases. War can be angry all the time; Famine can be a sadistic bastard; Love can be lusty and doe-eyed. There's no need to lump this into one unfortunate soul. And with polytheisms, they can give birth to other gods. They can come from somewhere. Christians frequently pose the question to atheists, "Well, where did all this come from? It had to come from somewhere?" They don't think their god came from anywhere, yet the universe needs an origin. Crazy. The apple doesn't fall far from the celestial tree, apparently.
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