In the latest piece of news manufactured for our collective outrage and entertainment, CNN is reporting the flap surrounding some comments made by presidential hopeless John McCain, who was quoted as saying, “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.” Not surprisingly, Jewish and Muslim groups are condemning McCain’s comments for their divisiveness. (The views of atheists and agnostics were not mentioned—nor, I assume, solicited—in the CNN report.)
Eager to mop up the spill of potential political support, McCain’s camp moved swiftly to clarify his statement. McCain himself said later that America was founded on “Judeo-Christian values ... which is [sic] basically ... human dignity and human rights.” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, dismissed McCain’s explanation, saying, “Islam and other faiths have their basis in human dignity.” Seeking to clarify further, McCain’s communication director, Jill Hazelbaker, suggested that McCain merely meant to indicate that “values protected in the Constitution, such as respect for human life and dignity, are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
That sounds nice. Too bad it’s utterly false.
The Torah and Bible are fairly thick books, so one can perhaps be forgiven if a light reading of only their “greatest hits” gives the impression that human dignity is held in high esteem. (Let’s briefly address Islam as well. Many people are led to believe that the name of the religion itself means peace. It doesn’t. It actually means surrender. God is everything, and you are nothing. Surrender to that idea, and you’re well on your way.)
Please help me find the evidence of human dignity and the value of human rights in the following selections from the so-called Good Book:
- The Bible condones and sanctions slavery. There are numerous references to slavery in the Bible, and I hope you’ll put in the effort to look them up on your own. But I’ll share this one with you: “When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property” (Exodus 21:20-21). Lest one think that the pro-slavery talk ended with the Old Testament, check out Ephesians 6:5, which says: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” There are more slavery chestnuts in the New Testament, too, including a message that slaves of Christian masters should work even harder to please them (see 1 Timothy 6:1-2). Oh, and even Jesus tacitly approved of the beating of slaves (see Luke 12:47-48).
- The Bible orders wholesale murder. If you’re unlucky enough to live in a town in which even one person is a nonbeliever (woe unto you, my neighbor) or a worshiper of “foreign gods,” you’re asking for it: “If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock” (Deuteronomy 13). Beyond that, if you get married and find your wife is not a virgin, kill her on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22). If you have sex with a priest’s daughter, set her on fire when you’re finished (Leviticus 21:9). Of course, kill all the homosexuals you come across (Leviticus 20:13), as well as everyone not of your faith (Exodus 22:20, Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 17), anyone you catch working on the Sabbath (Exodus 31), anyone who commits adultery (Leviticus 20), or just about anyone else you feel like killing, since the Bible will probably give you a reason for it. If you don’t believe me, have a look through some of the reasons given here.
- The Bible hates women. It's a fairly remarkable thing when women are treated as anything but property in the Bible. Furthermore, rape is rampant in the scriptures, but not in a way that is condemned by God. The penalty for rape is prescribed in Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which says: “If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.” Yes, that sounds like justice for the victim. Oh, if the victim is married or engaged, Deuteronomy says that she has to die, since she didn’t cry out and thereby allowed her husband’s or fiancé’s property to be violated. The financial penalty for falsely accusing a wife of not having been a virgin is twice that prescribed for rape (again, paid to the woman’s father), but the burden of proving that the woman was a virgin on her wedding night falls upon her family. If they are somehow unable to prove that she was a virgin, the woman must be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-21). For those with a taste for pillage, if you conquer a land, feel free to rape all its women after massacring all the men and children, assuming you don’t feel like raping the children, too (Judges 5:30, Zechariah 14:1-2, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, etc.).
These are but a few examples—chosen from scores more—of the true values celebrated by the vile, murderous godhead described in the horrendous fiction we’re supposed to regard as a paragon of human rights and divine wisdom. I highly recommend the site Evil Bible, which exposes the hypocrisy, inconsistency, and outright ludicrousness of this book.
I also recommend that those who find it fashionable to cite the Bible as a model of virtue actually take the time to read it first.
