Time Frames and Taboo Data Blog

The majority of people do not read through the priest-compiled scriptures before they are allowed to determine what is truly worthy of their belief.  For the most part, we all grow up having standards of belief crammed upon us from every side even before we might eventually try to read through the texts that are offered as “holy truth.”  By then a person has already been coached and indoctrinated into what is presented as superior belief, so any consulting of “holy” texts that is carried out is usually an attempt to justify some particular thread of belief.  This is glaringly epitomized by the rants and judgments of the dogmatists and fanatics of any faith system.

Such a means of teaching spiritual understanding is clearly the seed-ground for practices of hatred.  That tendency to justify hatred toward some unrealistic stance is met early on in the Old Testament book of Genesis, for even god is depicted as getting riled up and fuming with hatred over the trespassing upon the landscape feature of his garden by an inexperienced, blameless couple.  The couple is subjected to godly fury for not comprehending his vague rules.  For example, how could the newly created persons have any understanding of what a threat of death meant?

Every priest-conceived book contains some hate-fueled elements in them, but the priest-composed book of Leviticus, which was jammed unceremoniously between the storylines of the Israelite wanderings in Exodus and Numbers, is probably the most shameless counseling of hatemongering in all scriptures.  As a result of legitimizing hatred, the dogmatists and fanatics love to use the Bible as their weapon of intolerance against any human tendency that offends their ego-dreams of special favors.

In the main, all “laws” presented in Leviticus are crude, shamelessly prejudicial and insensitive, for they were designed solely for the purpose of establishing uncontested priestly authority over the people under the guise of godly installation.  A few of the Leviticus “truths” include: It is an abomination to eat pork; likewise god supposedly forbids the eating of shellfish such as lobsters (Lev. 11:10); drinking milk is a no-no; god is offended by any clothing made of mixed fibers; etc.  That the priest-authors really knew what they were talking about is shown in verse 5 of chapter 11: there it forbids the eating of the coney “…because he cheweth the cud.”  The coney or cony refers to a rabbit, especially an Old World species, which certainly does not regurgitate from its stomach to chew again.  (It is possible the translators really meant to refer to the hyrax, as was later used in Deuteronomy 14:7.)

Placed as Leviticus is between the books of Exodus and Numbers, the priest-authors virtually thumbed their noses at the commandment against killing and devoted the whole of chapter 20 to a list of offences for which god allegedly approved killing!  Indeed, in this holy book there is claimed to be 28 god-approved methods for killing priest-rejected people!  And chapter 21 then provides still more of god’s alleged prejudices by listing the physical “blemishes” that supposedly nauseated god and barred them from priesthood.  That appalling allegation of god’s prejudices was expounded upon, declaring that god also detests the blind, the lame, or “he that hath a flat nose or any thing superfluous, or has a broken foot or a broken hand.”  Continuing their rant, the priest-authors elaborate further: god is displeased with “…the crook back, or a dwarf or (those) that hath a blemish in his eye, or scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones (testicles) broken.”  On the other hand, to gain god’s good graces it is claimed that god finds the burning of a bull on the altar to be okay, because it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord.  It also happened to provide the priests with good food.

There is a heap of other little things that allegedly irks the Lord.  How about a neat haircut for males?  Heaven forbid!  Leviticus 19:27 states that trimming the hair around the ears and the temples is forbidden by god.  And farmers, take note: Leviticus 19:19 says that you are committing sin if you plant two different crops in the same field. And lordy! a man dares not curse nor blasphemy lest he be stoned to death by the village people (Lev. 24:10-16).  Leviticus 15: 19-24 instructs men that a woman is unclean during her menstrual period, and men should avoid any contact with a woman during her period.  Another “law” supposedly handed down by god, so the priest-authors said, was that if a man’s brother dies and his wife has not yet been made pregnant, the man is commanded to take his brother’s wife as his own: he is expected to impregnate her in his bother’s name to keep the family line going.

Moral regard for those purportedly not chosen by the Lord for special favors allowed plenty of room for indifference in the treatment of outsiders.  That’s why slavery could be tolerated, even though it was not widely practiced among the Hebrews.  Thus Leviticus, chapter 25: 44-45 was held up as example of god’s approval of slavery by Christians in the southern parts of the United States in the mid-1800s.  The passage allows possession of slaves, both male and female, as long as they are purchased from neighboring nations.  By that standard, the citizens of the US today should be free to purchase captured citizens from Canada or Mexico or elsewhere to use however they wish.

Today the book of Leviticus, chapter 18, verse 22, is still being used as heavenly allowance for practicing hatred against persons that have been created with same-sex attraction.  (Ugly examples of this spiritual perversion include such persons as Fred Phelps, the homophobic “reverend” in Kansas, and homophobic “Dr” Laura Schlesinger.)  Never taken into consideration in the bigots’ use of the Bible for practicing hatred of gays is that scientific studies—revealed realities—expose the Leviticus proposition that attraction to members of the same-sex is unnatural has absolutely no psychological, medical or psychiatric support.  And it is certain that such lifesaving medical procedures of blood transfusions, dialysis treatment, skin grafting or resuscitation would be regarded by the priest-authors of Leviticus as abominations.

Perhaps it is not particularly wise to cling so trustingly to bronze-age priest assertions in this age of space technology.

This entry was posted on January 14, 2012 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Atheist, belief, Bible, faith, random, religion with tags "revealed wisdom" vs revealed realities, biblical approval of hatred, Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers, god-approved prejudices, priest-composed "laws". You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.