Mercury Poisoning – A great way to slowly weed out the top of the food chain

I wonder if the ancient Hebrews had a good grasp on toxicology.

Somewhere around 430 BC the great Jewish prophet Malachi was responsible for about 1,500 words that made it into the Bible. Most of it was doom and gloom stuff about how Jehovah was going to destroy his people and stuff. However, if you pay close attention to the first chapter of Malachi you can uncover a secret plot against the Great One.

After a millennium and a half the Hebrews got tired of giving all the best bread and animals to Jehovah. They weren’t ready to just stop performing blood rituals and stuff though so they came up with a new master plan. Here’s the deal: if you have to play with blood, fat, and fire to keep Jehovah happy; why not kill the unhealthy animals to do it? Also, if you have to waste bread on Jehovah, why not use old crappy bread that you were going to throw out anyway?

The plan was implemented pretty smoothly with concurrence from the priests that actually butchered the animals, played with the blood, burned the fat and kidneys, and ate the meat. That’s right. The priests of the Great Jehovah were perfectly happy to play around with damaged goods. There was just one problem: Jehovah can tell the difference between a blood sacrifice of an unblemished animal, and one that has a limp or a funny complexion.

Jehovah was NOT happy with the change. I mean, I understand the bread. That was pretty obvious. There is a clear difference between fresh bread, and that stale moldy crap the descendents of Abraham were feeding Jehovah. The blood though, that’s different. You and I may not be able to tell the difference, but if a cow pulled a ligament and was then sacrificed; that blood is crap! You might as well collect dog poo, moldy straw, and torn upholstery to feed to your god.

Jehovah was so upset that eventually He cursed his people like this: “Cursed be the people that try to deceive me with shitty blood. I am a great King and unbelievers are afraid of me!” (Malachi 1:14)

Here’s the conspiracy: I think the people weren’t just trying to keep their healthy breeding stock around by feeding Jehovah impure blood. I think they’d gotten tired of Jehovah always pushing them around by destroying cities, causing droughts and floods, killing people and a whole litany of other stuff. They knew Jehovah was too tough for them to confront directly, but maybe, just maybe Jehovah wouldn’t notice a pulled ligament here, or a missing eye there. The people must have hoped that these impurities would build up in Jehovah like mercury in a shark. Eventually they would pass some unknown critical level that would either incapacitate or kill their god.

Moral: Jehovah notices.

Ref: Malachi 1:6-14

Human Sacrifice – I used to think Jehovah only liked smoke and blood from animals

Of course the best human sacrifices are virgin girls

Back when the Israelites were still wiping out their neighbors, Jephthah was made the captain of the combined armies of Israel. When the Ammonites attacked Israel, Jephthah sent messengers to ask why they were invading. The Ammonites responded, “It’s because the children of Israel stole our land when they came up out of Egypt.” Jephthah wasn’t versed well enough in Israeli history to know this was true, so he made up some story about how the Israelis didn’t actually take the Ammonites’ land and the Ammonites needed to back the F**K off.  Of course this message did nothing for the Ammonites so Jephthah moved to make battle.

Being the God-fearing man he was, Jephthah swore an oath to Jehovah that if the children of Israel were victorious against the Ammonites, he would offer whichever person first came out of his house to meet him when he got home as a sacrifice to the Lord. This must have worked because Jehovah helped Jephthah’s armies kill all sorts of Ammonites until the Ammonites didn’t have enough people left to mount an offensive.

When Jephthah got home he was really upset when his daughter was the first person to come out of his house to greet him. Because the daughter isn’t named in the bible, we will call her Autumn. You see, Jephthah really liked Autumn and she was his only offspring. Unfortunately Jephthah couldn’t go back on his promise and once he explained the situation to Autumn she understood that it was the only course of action. You see, she also believed that Jehovah would not have helped the Israelis kill all those Ammonites without the promise of a human sacrifice. This always makes my think of the scene in Dragonslayer where the kings daughter Princess Elspeth went willinging to be sacrificed to the dragon, as a virgin, to protect the townspeople from the dragon's wrath.

A Virgin Sacrifice for a Dragon

Autumn had a single request before she was sacrificed in accordance with Hebrew law. She just wanted to go into the wilderness with her friends so they could cry for two months because she was going to die a virgin. This made a lot of sense to Jephthah because he, like most men, believed that all females are eager for sex and can’t live properly without it.

Autumn bewailing her virginity

Two months later, Autumn came back home like she promised. Then she was sacrificed. For those that don’t know, this means a priest grabbed Autumn by the head and killed her in front of a crowd. Then the priest sprinkled her blood on an altar. Finally, Autumn’s fat and kidneys were removed and burned on the altar. This constitutes an “offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

Moral: the Lord doesn’t always stop a parent from sacrificing their child.

Ref: Judges 11:29-39 & Leviticus 3:1-6

Note: when I tell biblical stories this horrific, I always have a hard time typing by the end because I get upset. Also, when I started writing this I planned to focus on the whole “bewailing virginity” thing because it's funny, but by the time I got there; I just didn’t have it in me.

Saul Doesn’t Kill All The Animals – It’s the same as witchcraft

You know, because what God says really isn’t all that important anyway

In the first book of Samuel chapter 15, Jehovah told King Saul that he needed to take his army down to Amalek and kill all the men, women, children, babies, oxen, sheep, camels, and asses (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul was very happy to help Jehovah lay down a little more genocide so he gathered together 210,000 fighting men and headed to Amalek. The Hebrew army handily dispatched the Amalekian army and killed all the women, children, and babies before moving on to the livestock.

Here’s the thing though: Saul’s army didn’t kill ALL the animals. The very most healthy and beautiful ones were kept alive so they could be sacrificed to Jehovah. The silly Hebrews figured that since Jehovah was always telling people to kill super attractive animals on stone altars and burn their blood He would like some Amalekian animal blood too. They also took the King of Amalek captive instead of killing him. Jehovah immediately noticed that Saul didn’t do what he was told so He sent his prophet Samuel to have a chat with Saul.

Samuel showed up at the Hebrew army camp and Saul rushed over to tell him how wonderfully the genocide went, praise the lord, and all that. Samuel looked around and said, “Um, so what’s with all the sheep and oxen then?” Saul very patiently explained how after the army finished killing the babies, they were super happy and wanted to kill some of the pretty animals and feed Jehovah the blood. You know, to repay Jehovah’s kindness in letting them kill all those babies.

Samuel was clearly annoyed that Saul didn’t even seem to understand how he failed to do what Jehovah wanted. Samuel carefully controlled himself and said, “Saul, do you really think Jehovah would rather have burnt animal blood than have people do what He says? Listen stupid, Jehovah ALWAYS wants obedience first. If you don’t do exactly what Jehovah says you are guilty of rebellion against God, which is exactly the same bad as being a witch!”

Saul didn’t like the sound of that and said, “Oh no! I have sinned! Please forgive me so I can return to the worship of my god.” Of course that was too little too late and Samuel simple said, “Because you rejected your God’s will, you have now been rejected from being king!” Then Samuel demanded to see the king of Amalek and cut him up into little pieces.

Saul and Samuel never saw each other after that, and Jehovah said He was sorry He ever made Saul king.

Moral: if you don’t kill ALL the animals, you’ll make God regret giving you the responsibility to commit genocide.

Ref: 1 Samuel 15

King Saul – King Today, Gone Tomorrow

Saul is really stupid, or is it Yahweh?

For a long time after Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, they did not have a king. Eventually the little crybabies got tired of all the other nations having kings while they went without. “It’s just not fair” they complained. They organized protests and marches and stuff, all the while trying to bully Yahweh’s favorite prophet, Samuel, into letting them have a king. Samuel was not happy about this and kept trying to convince everyone that kings were bad. They took everyone’s money to make sure they were super rich and they made decisions that weren’t in the best interest of the population like, all the time. They masses didn’t care though. They had decided they wanted a king and nothing Samuel said could dissuade them.

Eventually Samuel prayed to Yahweh and said, “Your people won’t stop bugging me about this king thing. It really hurts my feelings because I am the prophet and want to make sure your prophets are always in charge.” Yahweh responded, “Stop being such a drama queen Samuel. The people aren’t rejecting you anyway. They’re rejecting me. Go ahead and find them a king.” This wasn’t hard for a seer of Samuel’s caliber. He quickly settled on Saul. Saul was not only the “goodliest” person in Israel, he was also the tallest.

After a ton of really boring drama crap that mostly involved threats to the general population, Saul became the undisputed King of Israel. Two years later the Israelites and Philistines were getting ready for a big battle. When Saul’s people noticed how many Philistines had shown up, they kinda freaked out a little and scattered, hiding in “caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.” Saul was concerned by this, but he waited patiently because Samuel had told him to wait for seven days. At which time, Samuel would offer a sacrifice to Yahweh and then the Israelites would stomp the piss out of the Philistines.

Seven days came and went. Saul was disappointed Samuel hadn’t shown up, but because he felt responsible for his people’s welfare he went ahead and made the burnt offering himself. As soon as the fire died down though, who should arrive but Samuel? Samuel marched right over to Saul, slapped him across the face, and said, “What the fuck man? Are you retarded?”

Saul said, “Well, there were all these Philistines, and you didn’t show up. I knew we needed Yahweh’s help so I made the sacrifice myself.” Samuel replied, “That was really fucking stupid. Yahweh was totally ready to make your kingdom last forever, but because you were so dumb and sacrificed when you weren’t supposed to, now you can’t be king anymore. Yahweh is going to find someone else who isn’t going to make terrible mistakes like this.”

Yes, that’s right. Because Saul asked for help from Yahweh, Yahweh abandoned him. Let this be a lesson to any of you who might be considering asking God for help. DON’T DO IT!

Ref: 1 Samuel 8-13

Cain and Abel – The first brothers

If I did twice the work and got less than half the reward, I’d be pretty upset too

After Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden they started popping out babies like crazy.

 

Their first two kids were boys named Abel and Cain. When they got old enough their parents put Abel in charge of herding the sheep and put Cain in charge of grain production. What this means is that mostly Abel walked around following the sheep and tried to keep them safe from lions and bears and stuff while Cain worked his ass off every damn day ploughing, planting, reaping, and threshing.
 

These were both important jobs but for whatever reason the more you work the less credit you get. When the time came to offer sacrifices to Elohim the creator; Abel brought some baby sheep and baby sheep fat while Cain brought a bag of wheat. Because Elohim is a big fan of blood and fat he really liked Abel’s sacrifice but he totally disrespected Cain.

 

Now Cain worked really hard for that wheat so he was all kinds of crazy upset that Elohim didn’t like it. Elohim noticed Cain was upset and asked him, “What are you getting your panties all in a bunch for? If you do well I’ll accept your stuff. If you don’t, sin will get you. Then it’s up to you to control sin so you don’t wind up its slave.”

Apparently this little pep talk did nothing for Cain because the next time he saw Abel out in the fields he took a big rock and smashed in Abel’s skull so he could get some baby sheep for kill for Elohim’s pleasure. It didn’t take long for Elohim to notice Abel was missing and he went straight to Cain to find out what was going on. He said, “Hey Cain, I can’t find your brother. Where is he?” Cain was very clever and answered, “How should I know? I’m like, not the boss of him, and stuff.”
 

 

Well Elohim wasn’t fooled. He said to Cain, “You jerk. I can totally tell you killed your brother. Now you are cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive your brother’s blood. From now on when you till the earth it won’t be nearly as productive as before.” Cain didn’t think this was fair and he said, “Hey, that’s too much. If that’s true, people will start to think it’s my fault when crops don’t grow well and they will kill me.” Elohim didn’t want Cain to die so he said, “Ok, pay attention universe: from this time forward anyone who kills Cain will have vengeance visited upon him at least seven times as bad.” Then Elohim put a mark upon Cain so everyone would know to not kill him.

 

After Cain was cursed, he took his wife/sister and walked east for a while before starting a new city with their kids.

 

This should be the end of the story, but the early Mormon leaders read the bible and decided the “mark of Cain” is dark skin and those with dark skin are inferior to people with white skin. God doesn’t like the dark people unless they manage to become good inside, in which case their skin becomes white. They even created the idea that one of Noah’s sons had a black wife to keep the dark skin gene going, then justified the poor treatment of blacks by teaching those born with dark skin didn’t love Jesus enough before they were born to earn white skin. Aren’t Mormons cool?

 

Bruce R. McConkey
(Taken from Wikipedia 19 Aug 2014)

"Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.” - Bruce R. McConkie

 

Ref: Genesis 4

Yahweh burns Aaron’s sons – In which we learn Yahweh is a dick

Why is Jesus always going on about wine, if Yahweh thinks it’s bad?

Once upon a time the Hebrew people were wandering through the wilderness of Southwest Asia after leaving Egypt. While they were out there Yahweh told Aaron (Moses’ brother) to kill a calf and a ram and offer them to the Lord. Yahweh also told Aaron to command the people of Israel to kill a baby goat, a calf, a lamb, a bullock, and a ram and offer them to the Lord.

So everyone gathered together in a huge mob with the animals. Aaron killed the animals, collected their blood in big bowls, took out their innards and washed them, and collected the fat. Then Aaron took the hides, bones, and meat and took them outside the camp and burned them. Once that was finished, Aaron sprinkled the blood on an altar and burned it. Then he put all the guts on the altar and burned them. Finally he put the fat on the altar and burned it.

Yahweh was so happy about all the burning stuff he appeared to the people of Israel like a great big ball of glorious light. Then, according to the Bible, fire shot out of him and consumed the offerings on the altar.  While it seems really reasonable that a big ball of fire would appear floating in the air and shoot down a finger of flame to burn stuff I find this passage confusing. The bible says Aaron burned all the stuff, then after Aaron was done burning stuff, Yahweh showed up to burn the stuff. Did Aaron just not do a good job or what?

Now we get to the point of this story: two of Aaron’s sons (Nadab and Abihu) decided to pray to Yahweh later. They remembered from the whole ball of fire trick that Yahweh liked burning stuff, so they took their incense burners, put incense in them, lit it and offered the burning incense to the Lord. Of course Yahweh was furious because these dumb sons of Aaron made a burnt offering without being told. To punish them Yahweh shot out fire from himself to completely destroy Nadab and Abihu. Turns out they were right about Yahweh liking to burn stuff. They were just confused about what He likes to burn.

Then Yahweh told Aaron and his other sons they were not allowed to mourn the deaths of Nadab and Abihu and he told them to not drink wine. You see, people that do magic in the name of Yahweh can’t drink wine so they will always be able to tell the difference between clean and unclean (here’s lookin’ at you Jesus, ya damn drunk).

Ref: Leviticus 9-10

Elijah vs. Priests of Baal – The best solution for any religious debate is mass murder

Seriously, you had to kill all of them?

Ahab the King of Israel was a worshiper of Baal, not a worshiper of Jehovah. He and his wife, Jezebel were such devout followers of Baal that they had been working to exterminate all the prophets of Jehovah. Elijah was the most famous prophet of Jehovah at this time and he decided one day he needed to do something about the situation. He went had a chat with Ahab and proposed a friendly little prophet contest between himself and all the prophets of Baal.

Ahab was ok with this so he gathered up 450 prophets of Baal and spread the word about the contest so there would be a large audience. After everyone had gathered together Elijah explained the rules: “OK people, listen up. The prophets of Baal and I are each going to build a big pile of wood, throw a couple of oxen on it and then pray to our respective gods to answer with fire. The god that can burn the oxen on his own is the true god. The prophets of Baal have the first turn.”

The prophets of Baal got an early start with their praying but by noon, nothing had happened. Elijah decided to have a little fun with this and said, “Hey losers, what’s the matter? You know what? I bet your god is probably sleeping in. You’re just not praying loud enough to wake him up. It’s ok though. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

Finally evening rolled around with nothing happening on the Baal side and Elijah announced it was his turn. “Listen up. I’m gonna have a go at this now. We’re gonna have to make a few changes first though. I need you to dig a trench around my altar and pour barrels of water over the wood until the trench fills up. Oh, and I need to throw a bunch of rocks in there too.”

After the changes were implemented Elijah cast Flame strike (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Flame_Strike). He made a perfect roll of 15d6 resulting in 45 points of divine damage and 45 points of fire damage. The spell consumed the oxen, the wood, the water, and the stones. The audience was stunned. They immediately feel to the ground and proclaimed life-long dedication to Jehovah.

This wasn’t quite enough for Elijah who immediately shouted, “Hey, grab all those prophets of Baal. Don’t let them get away!” Then Elijah killed all 450 of them with his bare hands, one at a time. This is of course the only unbelievable part of the story. There’s no way someone could kill 450 people without stopping to take a break. I just don’t buy it. Well, unless of course that person is Samson, but that’s another story.

Ref: 1 Kings 18:1-40