flood of violence

A mere six chapters into the Bible, God decides to kill every living being on earth—every bird, every animal and every human. (Gn 6-7). Why birds and animals had to suffer and die for the sins of mankind isn’t made clear but save for a handful on a boat they are all said to perish under swirling holy water. These same waters swallowed terrified mothers and their infants, screaming little boys and girls, men and women. All washed away as God scrubbed the earth clean of wickedness. Ah, can’t you just see the new world sparkle!

A critical examination of The Flood should include a study of the Epic of Gilgamesh (a much older myth sharing some twenty major points strongly suggesting the Israelites simply stole the story). However, rather than focusing on this fact, the complete lack of archaeological evidence of such a flood, or the sheer absurdity of thinking one could possibly gather every species “that breathes” from the far reaches of the planet, I think more profound truths might be discovered by asking a few questions.

What was accomplished with The Flood? What was the long-term benefit of the most violent act in all of literature — was all the killing worth it?

The Bible itself shows God’s attempt to wash away wickedness to be the most miserable failure of all time. In the chapters immediately following the slaughter of all slaughters, wickedness spreads as quickly as the flood waters did. And God responds to this new human wickedness with more divine wickedness. Faced with the problem of sin in Sodom, he chose to incinerate the valley’s inhabitants with “fire and brimstone” (Gn 19:24). Jealous that the children of Israel were worshipping idols, he chose to murder the transgressors, commanding men to take up their swords and “kill your brothers and friends and neighbors” (Ex 32:27-29).

The biblical message is loud and clear. Violence purifies, destruction is righteous and bloodshed redeems, and this message has validated brutality for two thousand years. The idea of a punishing God justifies the violent actions of the punishing parent, authority figure, and nation.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize he said, “Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” King eloquently articulated the weakness of violence, describing it as “a descending spiral” which begets “the very thing it seeks to destroy.” He said that violence does not diminish evil but only multiplies it: “Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.”

God’s violence only begat more violence. He drowned the wicked but not wickedness, incinerated sinners but not sin and murdered idolators but not idolotry. As King said, violence doesn’t eliminate wickedness but multiplies it. At the very best, violence is a short term solution. To reach our full potential as human beings—as humane beings—we will have to learn to resolve problems without resorting to violence and this begins with a devotion to compassion not to the dangerous delusion called God.

shackled

Much of life is occupied with the quest for power. We seek power over pain, fear, and loneliness; over hunger, and the harsh elements, sickness, and death. These of course, are natural and healthy desires. Unfortunately, there has long been those among us that desire a toxic type of power—the power over others. It was this unhealthy desire coupled with the recognition of the power to be gained by speaking for the gods that gave rise to the very first witch doctors, magicians, and soothsayers, eventually becoming known as the priesthood.

Countless supernatural beings have been imagined, feared and worshipped. All these belief systems empowered the god’s spokesmen or Leaders at the expense of the Followers by promising some kind of benefit (health, fertility, victory) in exchange for some kind of sacrifice (blood, praise, obedience). Christianity is no different.

The Christian system demands that Followers submit to believing and obeying certain things. This requires the sacrifice of intellectual freedom in exchange for the promise of extraordinary benefits. These benefits include promises that the King of the Universe will love and protect them, listen to their every word, and even give them anything they ask for (Mt 21:21-22). Of course, the ultimate benefit is the promise of eternal life. And just in case this isn’t compelling enough to inspire submission, Jesus threatens unbelievers with the ultimate punishment— eternal pain. This promise of bliss for those who submit and obey, and misery for those who don’t, is the core of the Christian system of control—a system that creates a fog of fear, obligation and guilt that makes breaking free from the Christian community incredibly difficult.

The New Testament speaks of ‘servants’ and ‘masters’ over 150 times and yet Jesus never once condemns the evil practice of slavery. Jesus speaks of slaves being brutally whipped and even killed and cut to pieces and yet never once encourages the oppressed to seek justice. In fact, dozens of passages send the opposite message, encouraging the persecuted to turn the other cheek, love their cruel masters, pray for them, forgive them, and always remain submissive and obedient to them. Women, oppressed by both the system and men, are promised that their obedience actually makes them beautiful. The apostle Peter tells us, “For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master....” (1 P 3:5-6).

Why didn’t Jesus condemn slavery? Why did he tell the oppressed and persecuted to consider themselves “blessed” to be so? I would argue that it’s because Jesus was a mythological character whom the gospel writers made do and say what fit their agendas. The Christian belief system evolved from the Mystery religions which long predated it. Hijacked by the Roman government it was politicized. Stories originally designed to facilitate a deepening of spiritual meaning became literalized in order to enslave minds so as to control behavior, and empower Leaders at the expense of Followers.

Because so many fear death and fear thinking for themselves even more so, it seems there will always be plenty of people that are happy to play follow the religious leaders; happy to remain shackled to superstitions and sacrifice their time, money, and minds in exchange for the promise that they’ll live forever. But however “happy” individuals may be to accept delusions of the supernatural, religious leaders are in fact contributing to the unhappiness of humanity as a whole, as different religious beliefs breed divisiveness. And divisiveness leads to conflict and suffering.

Futhermore, for religious leaders to speak authoritatively about things which no one knows is dishonest. To make one’s living through dishonesty is morally repugnant. To do so by diverting people’s focus from the one life and world we are sure of, to an afterlife and an otherworld of ghosts, gods, and goblins, that we have no evidence of, is to my mind, a sort of crime against life. As Albert Camus said, if there is a sin against life, it is “in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”