God v. Monkeys

By Anthony Levensalor

Monday, July 18, 2005 at 02:58 PM

Lee Salisbury published a piece in the Axis of Logic July 13th called Monkeys are preferable as ancestors over the bible?s God anytime!

In this very cogent and stark comparison between monkeys and God, Salisbury gets to the heart of the matter using the very tools used to "prove" Christianity as the more moral path than evolution: the Bible.

The bible?s God acknowledges he creates evil and darkness (Is. 45:7; Lam. 3:38; Amos 3:6). He also claims to be justified in condemning all humanity to eternal punishment because of Adam and Eve?s foreknown disobedience (Rom.5:18). His stopgap plan of salvation, improvised before the foundation of the world (I Pet.1:19-20; Rev.13:8) to solve the sin problem of his creation, provided for only a mere fraction of Adam?s descendants. However, the bible?s God absolves himself of all responsibility (no wonder the White House worships him) and claims that the humans he created in his image are to blame for sin. Excuse me, but I cannot imagine a monkey engaging in premeditated failure, nor condemning other monkeys for a crime that they did not commit, nor demanding a degree of punishment far in excess of the alleged act, especially if the monkey in charge is himself the creator of evil. Would not such egregious actions be beneath the moral standards of monkeys?

Not a valid argument, I hear the anti-reality people say. God is all loving, benign, and all-knowing. He does things for his own reasons (secretive), and never tells us of the plan he has for any of us (micromanaging).

Oh, there's more. I'm leaning heavily on Lee here, because this piece said it all:

In over 45 instances in the Old Testament, God either personally kills or orders Israel to kill people, once for an offense as slight as picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Num.15:32-36). This God qualifies as a serial killer. In the New Testament, he tortures people for eternity. Humane parents have a constructive, redemptive purpose in punishment. This inhumane God has no purpose other than punishment for the sake of punishment. He makes Saddam Hussein?s Abu Ghurayb torture chambers look like a playpen. To worship this God, one must relish sadomasochism.

And of course, for many centuries, that's exactly what happened. Worshippers of Christianity's deity often neglected and even abused their bodies because they were taught that their bodies were evil, the root of sin, yadda fuckin' yadda.

With the advancement of science, religions have either adapted or become obselete. Christianity, for centuries the biggest bully on the block, has not adapted or become obselete. It has only become louder and more disconnected from the provable, what we consider "facts".

I'll let Lee take you home here:

Whether it concerns Galileo Galilei or Charles Darwin, religion has an established history of fighting science whenever it threatens their belief system. Fundamentalism?s biblical literalism depreciates and distorts rational, evidence-based scientific thinking. Evolution has progressed in the last 150 years from an idea, to a workable hypothesis, to a provable theory. Its supporting evidence is overwhelming, just as it is that the earth is neither flat nor the center of the universe.

Maybe it is time fundamentalists appreciated monkeys a little more!

~A!