Most Christians have never actually read the Bible and have no idea how absurd it is.
According to the Bible, God is pro-slavery, pro-genocide, pro-misogyny, pro-poligamy, pro-child-marriage, and has all the same petty, cruel, and vindictive character flaws as the Bronze Age goat herders who invented him.
What a coincidence!
God, the Bible, and Rape: While we as women and men decry rape and rape culture in civil society, we must not neglect its roots in our sacred texts
Rape is normative in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The texts in which women are raped are legion: Numbers 31:15-18; Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Judges 19:22-26. Shockingly, for many religious readers, God, Moses and the Torah call for the rape of women (and killing of their infants) as a normative practice in war. (I present at some length on sanctioned rape in the Scriptures here.)
Perhaps most shocking of all is that the God of the text -- who for many readers is their God -- uses the language of rape normatively to describe his (in this case I yield to tradition) justified punishment of Israel, positioning himself as the rapist of his errant and deserving wife.
Dr. Kate Blanchard expresses the horror of the unsuspecting reader:
Quick -- which famous religious personality voiced this angry tirade: "Remove your veil, take off the skirt, uncover the thigh... Your nakedness shall be uncovered, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance"?
Or this: "It is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up, and you suffer violence... I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen"?
Or this: "She did not give up her whorings... in her youth men had lain with her and fondled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her. Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, for whom she lusted. They uncovered her nakedness... and they killed her with the sword. Judgment was executed upon her, and she became a byword among women"?
Yep, you guessed it: The God of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (Isaiah 47, Jeremiah 13, and Ezekiel 23). The translations of these shining examples of victim-blaming are clear enough, despite the old-fashioned language: I'm angry and you're going to suffer for it. You deserve to be raped because of your sexual exploits. You're a slut and it was just a matter of time till you suffered the consequences. Let this be a lesson to you and to all other uppity women.
When evangelical snowflakes censor the Bible: The English Standard Version goes PC. How a Bible edition aimed at right-wing evangelicals has quietly scrubbed references to slavery and "the Jews"
Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States
In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were laws passed by most states that prohibited interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibited interracial sexual relations. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery.[1]
Most states had repealed such laws by 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) in the remaining 16 states.[2][3] The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery.[4]
Typically defining mixed-race marriages or sexual relations as a felony, these laws also prohibited the issue of marriage licenses and the solemnization of weddings between mixed-race couples and prohibited the officiating of such ceremonies. Sometimes, the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would be brought against them instead.
All anti-miscegenation laws banned marriage between Whites and non-White groups, primarily Black people, but often also Native Americans and Asian Americans.[5]
On this day: Supreme Court rejects anti-interracial marriage laws
On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court issued its Loving v. Virginia decision, which struck down laws that banned inter-racial marriages as unconstitutional. Here is a brief recap of this landmark civil rights case.
June 12 Is Loving Day — When Interracial Marriage Finally Became Legal In The U.S.
When Richard and Mildred Loving awoke in the middle of the night a few weeks after their June, 1958 wedding, it wasn't normal newlywed ardor. There were policemen with flashlights in their bedroom. They'd come to arrest the couple.
Why was interracial marriage illegal in the US? Because of the bible.
There are tons and tons of bible verses condemning and forbidding marriage with people who were not from your own tribe. Here are just a few of them:
Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
Genesis 24:1-4
Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
Genesis 27:46
Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women.
Genesis 28:1
You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
Deuteronomy 7:3-4
For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.
Joshua 23:12-13
For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.”
Ezra 9:2
So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia. And the people of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years.
Judges 3:5-8
Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’
Ezra 9:12
While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law. Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it.”
Ezra 10:1-4
“You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.
Leviticus 19:19
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Corinthians 6:14
11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!
Malachi 2:11–12
The word of the Lord came to me: “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth. “For thus says the Lord: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 16:1-21
“If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense."
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
These verses are the reason why Christians have persecuted gay people for centuries.
That's why Nazis put gay people in concentration camps.
The Nazis saw themselves as good Christians, and believed it was their Christian moral duty to exterminate gay people, in the name of traditional Christian values:
Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals
After taking power in 1933, the Nazis persecuted homosexuals as part of their so-called moral crusade to racially and culturally purify Germany. This persecution ranged from dissolution of homosexual organizations to internment of thousands of individuals in concentration camps. Gay men, in particular, were subject to harassment, arrest, incarceration, and even castration.
Nazi Concentration Camps
In 1933–1939, before the onset of war, most prisoners consisted of German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of 'asocial' or socially 'deviant' behavior by the Germans.
“We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. In fact our movement is Christian.”
“We’re convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."
This post first appeared on Malloy.rocks
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