Unholy Word: A Love To Die For

With the atrocity that is "National Bible Week" in full swing (though I haven't seen any effects of it, thank goodness), let's delve into another look at this Unholy Word.

Dinah Blow Your Horn
Today the tale is from Genesis 34.  Dinah, a Jewish girl, is raped by a man named Shechem. After he rapes her, he goes to his father and pleads, "I've fallen in love with her, you gotta get her for me, I must marry her!"

Shechem's father goes to Dinah's father, Jacob, and says "My son raped your daughter...but he loves her, so let's have them marry. Even better: let's swap daughters between our two tribes and form a peace treaty! We'll rule this area together and be strong!"  He is so infatuated with her that he asks, "Set the bride-price as high as you want and we'll pay."

The sons of Jacob were there and they said, "Sorry, our sister can't marry anyone who isn't circumcised. That's just the way it is. As a matter of fact, if you want to create a peace treaty, your whole tribe will have to convert and be circumcised."

Well evidently Dinah was Helen-of-Troy hot, because not only did Shechem agree to be circumcised, his entire tribe took the snip in order to seal the deal and make up for raping Jacob's daughter. That's real dedication!

Three days later, while all the men of this tribe were sitting around sore, two of Jacob's sons come in and slaughter all of them. They kill every man in the city, including Shechem and his father. Then they grabbed all these men's sisters and wives and headed home. Then the rest of Jacob's sons showed up and plundered the city, taking livestock food, children, everything.

Jacob was mad at his sons; they'd runed any chances at a peace treaty with any other tribe -- who would trust them again? His sons said, "So we should have just let them treat our sister like a whore?"  There's nothing more on the story, it just ends there.

Too Many Bad Ideas
I guess the moral is that if your family member gets raped and your original ludicrous demands are met, you're justified in killing, pillaging, and enslaving to get even.  But I could be wrong; like a lot of these old stories, simple moral points tend to get added and mixed.  To some the point is not to disobey your father and the consequences of killing your new-found friends. Or maybe it's a sad story about how a guy lost his one true love.  Its a tortured jumble of lessons that weren't being thought out as they were being put together.

Of course, I can understand anyone being enraged to the point of murder at the rape and forced marriage of your sister.  (Yes, keep in mind that woman didn't get a say in who thy married.  They were treated as property and bargaining chips.)  But the actions they took were unjustified and immoral.  These kinds of stories fill this antiquated book that so many will point to as being the backbone of modern American society and good moral values.  If only these people would just read the thing!

The bible offers more instructions on rape in Deuteronomy 22 if you weren't sure how to get away with it.

Good stuff.  Read it to your kids or at the dinner table between the turkey and the pumpkin pie.


-STA

Real Seven Sins

I don't believe in "sin", but here are seven actual things that I would qualify as truly wicked:

1. Credulity to the point of gullibility
   Believing in everything is stupid and dangerous. Believing "just in case" or accepting a claim as true by default and not requiring supporting evidence is foolish. Faith falls into this category.
   
   
2. Voluntary, willful ignorance
   Keeping yourself in the dark on purpose is a sin in my book. Knowledge is always a good thing. Sure, ignorance is bliss but it's also ignorant. I'd rather be happy I know (or don't know) something and know it. You should always be willing to learn and be willing to change your mind if you find out you don't have the right information.
   
   
3. Letting fear prevent you from understanding reality
   Being afraid of the truth because it hurts or is too scary to face can be reasons for committing the aforementioned sin. I might go as far as to say the main reasons for the existence of religion are to A) make the unknown less scary (by claiming it to already be known), and B) to provide a more palatable version of reality. Yes, the truth sometimes hurts. Knowing that your lost loved ones aren't waiting for you in some magical realm is sad. Knowing that you're going to die is scary. But replacing knowledge for a false reality because of fear doesn't change reality, and it only makes it that much harder to come to grips with. As one religious text says, the truth will set you free.
   
   
4. Limiting the rights and freedoms of others in order to make them abide by your standards
   The standards of your religion are up to you to follow -- don't push them onto others. This "sin" is probably the main cause for many atheists and freethinkers such as myself to speak out so fervently against religion. Almost on a daily basis in the United States, Christians are pushing to get their religious standards into the law of the land. (California's Prop8 is a current example.) Keep your God out of my government and I'll leave you to your delusions.
   
   
5. Sacrificing the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of a child in deference to your religion
   Forcing religion on kids is child abuse. A child can be told almost anything at a young enough age and believe every word of it. Not allowing them to learn or ask questions is tantamount to keeping them locked in the basement. And it goes much further than just the psychological trauma of telling them things like they'll go to hell: kids actually die because parents just pray instead of seeking medical attention. If you want to die for your beliefs then that's fine, but don't endanger anyone else's life -- especially a child's.
   
   
6. Wasting your one and only life worrying about and working for an afterlife that somebody told you might exist
   Not living your life to the fullest is something that I would consider sinful. Spending that life hoping for an afterlife is even worse. It's foolish to try to prepare for something that has not been demonstrated even one tiny bit. Sure it's okay to hope, but you can't waste your life -- the only one you know for sure you get -- on blind faith.
   
   
7. Only doing good based on the sole purpose of receiving a reward or avoiding punishment
   Doing good because God tells you, not for goodness sake. We nonbelievers can help people because it's the right thing to do. Humans are cooperative, social creatures. Together, we've made the world what it is today. We learn from each other, teach each other, and pull ourselves up from the pits of ignorance -- and we don't need a god to do it. If you truly think you need a god to be good, then please stop reading this blog and do whatever it takes to keep your theism!

To commit most of these sins requires a religious worldview, but for whatever the reason, ignoring reality for what it really is and trying to push your skewed view onto others is a transgression to humanity.

-STA