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From Positive Atheism's Infamous
National Bible Week Poster
notes and compilation by Cliff Walker
Permission to reproduce or re-post is granted as long as
the text and ordering of the piece remains unaltered
(including this paragraph) and these addresses show:
Positive Atheism; Box 16811; Portland, Oregon, 97292;
www.PositiveAtheism.org.
Many become Atheists
after reading the Bible
Introduction
There seems little chance of stopping state and local proclamations to honor National Bible Week. Since 1940, Christian groups have pressured government officials to urge citizens to read the Christian Bible. Hundreds of public servants unashamedly endorse this Christian intrusion each year.
US District Judge Roslyn Silver recently ruled that plaintiffs challenging a National Bible Week proclamation issued by the town of Gilbert, Arizona lacked proper standing in the case. "The Supreme Court has concluded that no matter how significant, the psychological suffering resulting from knowledge of purportedly unconstitutional conduct does not constitute judicially cognizable injury for purpose of standing."
If the only damage is the fact that it's unconstitutional, there's no damage.
Positive Atheism now urges an "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach.
We encourage non-Christians to examine the Bible and contact the local press. Celebrate National Bible Week by showing the Bible's barbarity.
Bible thumpers want us to believe that the Bible is a bulwark of morality that will save our country from certain destruction. The Bible itself shows otherwise, but people think the Bible is good simply because they never read it. Let's take to the streets and shout these Biblical obscenities from the rooftops!
-- Cliff Walker
Thomas Paine
After the sermon was ended ... I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard.... I moreover believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
-- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women
Wife listed among property
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
-- Exodus 20:17 (AV), The Tenth Commandment
Christian women: be silent
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
-- I Corinthians 14:34-35 (NIV)
Woman must marry rapist
If a man [meets] a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her ... He must marry the girl ... He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
-- Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (NIV)
Virgin women are war booty
"Have you allowed all the women to live?" he [Moses] asked them.... "Now ... kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
-- Numbers 31:1-18 (NIV)
Children
Beatings don't kill kids
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod [sceptre], he shall not die.
-- Proverbs 23:13 (AV)
Execute stubborn kids
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son ... Then shall his father and his mother ... bring him out unto the elders of his city ... And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.
-- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (AV)
Kids killed for mocking hero
Some small boys came out of the city and jeered at [the prophet Elisha], saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And ... he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
-- II Kings 2:23-24 (RSV)
God orders child sacrifice
God did tempt Abraham, ... And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest ... and offer him there for a burnt offering...
-- Genesis 22:1-2 (AV)
Daughter: a burnt offering
Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return ... will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." ... and the Lord gave them into his hands.... When Jephthah returned to his home..., who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! And he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
-- Judges 11:30-32, 34, 39 (NIV)
Slavery Endorsed
Those who disagree spurned
... all who are under the yoke of slavery ... who have believing masters ... must serve all the better since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. If any one teaches otherwise ... he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy..., which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind...
-- I Timothy 6:1-5 (RSV)
How to mark your property
... thou shalt take an [awl], and thrust it through his ear..., and he shall be thy servant for ever.
-- Deuteronomy 15:17 (AV)
Uncut & Unsubtle
Before razors & bikini wax
Thy navel is like a round goblet, ... thy belly is like an heap of wheat.
-- Song of Solomon 7:2b (AV)
Sweet to the taste
I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
-- Song of Solomon 2:3 (AV)
The magic hand
My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.
-- Song of Solomon 5:4 (AV)
No comment
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
-- Ezekiel 23:20 (NIV)
Jesus Christ
The Prince of Peace
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother...
-- Matthew 10:34-35 (AV)
Stupid Gospel Tricks
The Fig Tree Enigma
The next day..., Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." ... In the morning..., they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter ... said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree ... has withered!"
-- Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 (NIV)
Points to remember
Questions to ponder
If it wasn't fig season, why would even a moron look for figs?
Is killing a tree for not bearing fruit out of season a reasonable response by any standard?
Matthew 21:18-21 (written after and based upon Mark) says it withered at once. Mark says they saw it the next day and then marveled. Something's terribly wrong, here. Was Matthew possibly dissatisfied with a Jesus who'd take an entire day to wither a damned fig tree?
-- commentary by Cliff Walker
The Abimelech Society
The Abimelechs are an association of Atheist men and women who remove the Holy Bible from hotels, motels, hospitals, jails, and many other places.
The association was founded in Canada in the 1960s by a couple of Freethinkers who, in a hotel room, found the only reading material to be a Gideon Bible. Angered by this overt propaganda, they moved into action.
Thousands of Bibles have been withdrawn from circulation and destroyed.
The Abimelechs are named after the bastard son of Gideon. In Judges 9, Abimalech thwarts the work of Judge Gideon. Gideon had destroyed many tribes whose religious beliefs differed from his conviction that Yahweh was The One True God.
-- Cliff Walker
Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain)
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave. Ask that young lady -- she will tell you so.
Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck's character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than those of Solomon, David, Satan, and the rest of the sacred brotherhood.
If there is an unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from that questionable companionship?
-- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), letter to a librarian, from his Autobiography