by Bob Hall
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-conflict-gaza.html
I briefly fanned through the articles on your site (and found some very good ones BTW) however, I didn’t see any on the Israeli genocide in Palestine.
This was in one way surprising, but in another way predictable. Predictable in the context of the taboos in place to firewall such criticism, but surprising, alarming, and disappointing from the rational foundations of atheism. I am an atheist and I live in Vancouver. To keep this as short as I can, I won’t elaborate on these points.
The argument of Jewish legality to indigenous rights in Palestine is predicated on the false historicizing of events in the bible. As atheists, we understand that the bible is a complete and total fabrication from the first word of Genisis to the last of Revelations.
We know as logical. civilized members of the human community that everything in those 2 volumes is fabricated and must be totally disregarded as a source of historical information. I’ll make the point that the ‘historical’ significance of the bible is not in its actual context, or the characters talked about within, but in the fact that our history has been forged around its concepts and tenants. In other words … the bible itself is fake but the ‘belief’ in the bible is very real indeed. With that in mind … I ask: “Why hasn’t the atheist community stepped forward as the only voice of reason in terms of the issue of the ‘State of Israel?” – because let’s be honest … it’s in a hell of a state!
The only reason those people who call themselves ‘jews’ are in Palestine at all is because they believe that land was awarded/promised to them by god! Otherwise, they would not even be there. They don’t call it the ‘Holy Land’ for nothing! And seeing as there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY they could possibly have made such a covenant with something that doesn’t even exist, all their claims to the land etc. are null and void and totally ridiculous.
This also makes their actions incomprehensible, barbaric, and against everything an atheist would condone. So … why have you not condemned the illegal occupation and this religious based slaughter? Please do the right thing and use every available measure at your disposal to bring this to public awareness – for the sake of us all. If we reject everything in the bible, we must also reject all the claims of humans interacting with these fictional characters – and that includes anyone’s claims to have the ‘legal right’ to kill other humans in the way and reason it’s being done in Palestine. As a thinking and logical human being/atheist, there is no other position that can be defended. Good day.
In my humble opinion, Israel is the ONLY Democratic state in the Middle East, legal or not, is subject to endless debate.
Muslim lands extend to 26 MILLION Sq Kms,
Israel consists of just 21,000 Sq Kms.
Muslim world population – 1.8 BILLION.
Jewish World population – 15 Million.
Israel has some 6.8 Million inhabitants 25% ( 1.8 million) are Muslims (any of which are free to go to an Arab land.) None will have them I understand. Not even those those in peril in Gaza. Their neighbour Egypt is taking none.
The question arises – How many Jews live in Muslim lands?
Just how much land to the Muslims want? They already occupy, but do not YET control much of Europe.
My very good Muslim friend here tells me that, the Muslims are not afraid to die fighting the infidel because it gives them a free pass to paradise, where they will receive there much awaited 72 Sweet, White, Grapes. (might be a mistranslation?)
World domination is their Mantra no matter how long it takes.
Hatred of the Jews is only the beginning, When they are gone, WHO is next.?
They do not need a well armed army as in the Ottoman times, they just need to simply INFILTRATE and DOMINATE. They are well on their way to subjugate Europe.
Greetings to all none believers…..
I’m not interested in debating the bible. I quit doing that years ago because to me, the fact that there are actual places and some historical references in them that can be authenticated, doesn’t do anything to disprove its fabrication. It would be as if in 3,000 years they declared that because there is mention of Dubai, Shanghai, and Venice, Ethan Hunt and the Mission Impossible Agency must have actually existed. Of course, there are going to be some mentioning of places and even perhaps some events because people write about what they know … that just makes sense. But as a historically accurate recording? Never. It makes for good conversation, but for the most part, judaism has its roots in Egyptian mythology. There is also much of it lifted from Pegan Greco-Roman influences, but tales of the Old Testament take place mostly in Egypt. That’s why there is a pyramid on the US dollar and so on.
The Christian Religion was well established before the First Council of Nicaea, which was held as Constatine declared his conversion to Christianity. This essentially was the stake through the heart of the Roman Empire – which was the primary purpose of Christianity from its inception. Nicaea was a major event in world history for many reasons. Foremost amongst these were the Roman Empire’s formal recognition of the Pope and his being legally instated as the primary authority in all matters through the concept of the Devine Right to Rule. From this point on there was no higher authority than the Pope because there is no higher authority than god. And the office of Pope in Christian doctrine was given this power from Jesus himself. Even kings were under his authority because he could merely have them declared as heretic and they’d be removed or executed. The other GIGANTIC measure that came out of Nicaea was on usury. It was written into law that no Christian was to engage in usury, a sin punishable by death. Only jews were permitted to loan money for interest. Try and put a price tag on that little clause in today’s dollars! The office of Pope was never autonomous, because of the Catholic Church was under financial subservience to the lenders. Nicaea was essential to put a cap on the rapid expansion of Christianity. BTW … a similar condition of usury exists in Islam.
There are people who suggest that perhaps there was a person that formed the basis for the Jesus character, but all that stuff is neither here nor there. None of it can actually be proven. Even if it is true, or part of it true, that doesn’t alter one bit what it actually is and the tidal wave of destruction that has been left in its wake – which is my primary concern at this point. When I personally talk about the ‘Bible’, by and large I refer to the Old Testament, which is a collection of various mythologies etc. going back to and before the time written about by Sitchen and others. The Old Testament is the blueprint for the scorched earth of the last 3,500 years and forms the basis for the new book. I often refer to them as parts 1 and 2 because they are 2 distinct publications, but the New Testament cannot stand on its own without the Old. As atheists on the same team, our biggest obstacle is not to disprove the authenticity of the bible, but to connect the dots as to the depth and scope of its influence on governance. More than half the world subscribes to the Abrahamic ideology. It doesn’t matter in the end if none of it, or all of it is fact – because what is fact is that it is a devastating monstrosity that has to be put in check at the very least. History more than bears this out. There’s a quote that goes like this … “You can avoid reality, but you can’t avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” I’m not sure if I got it right of who said it. Keep researching and writing my friend. I enjoy reading your stuff.
I have been an atheist all of my life. My parents and grandparents never attended church or even discussed religion thus I was never indoctrinated at a young age.
However since retiring I have studied the Bible. I don’t believe that it is a complete work of fiction.
It is a collection of writings (scriptures) latin for writings. Written by people long long ago that did not understand the world about them and wrote what they perceived to be the truth. Agreed much of it misconstrued. In 325 AD there was a meeting of ’Bishops’ in Nicaea in Turkey to discuss all the scraps of Scriptures that had been collected to date. They were responsible for cobbling together the present day bible. They eliminated anything that they considered unlikely or unbelievable and concentrated their undoubted intellect on how many Angels could stand on the head of a pin.
Some time later the books of Enoch were discovered in Ethiopia by a Scottish scholar around 1773. That threw the cat amongst the pigeons and a new concoction of events had to be conjured up. I think I recall, that the Vatican made a grab for these books of Enoch and hid them in their vaults. Later still more books of Enoch were discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls. If you have not read the books of Zechariah Sitchin I would implore you to do so. They are basically based on the Clay tablets discovered in Mesopotamia and covered in Cuneiform script dating thousands of years before the Bible or the Torah were created. If Zechariah’s translations are correct they throw a much more believable origin to mankind.
Well to some of us, I spent my final 32 working years in the Space Industry contracted to ESA and have my own thoughts.
Barry … Nice to be able to talk to you. Just to clarify … when I said we need to make the public aware of the situation, I wasn’t talking about the news headlines, what I meant is that we need to make it clear that this is 100% about religion – the goal being to put it under the microscope. Those of us who “See the light” about religion can see right through Israels claims and can discern the facts – and that goes for their co-religious enablers as well. If there was ever to be a time for us to make a point … this is it. The mask is off and there is no way to sugarcoat what’s going on. And again … with the magnitude of this event it’s the perfect time to say (although we hate to say) … “I told you so!” I don’t know if you watched the S African presentation and the Israeli response, but if you haven’t you should. It’s incredible – historic. I’ve done some very deep diving into what I call the “Judaic Period of History”, and I can’t honestly recount a more significant event in highlighting the religious/political mindset and agenda of this cult. They are literally standing up in front of an International Court and presenting their case on the basis of a book that is a complete work of fiction. It’s unbelievable to watch this being played out like it is. Israel is attempting to steer the conversation away from its actions by invoking ancient mystical superstitions, and by offering as evidence completely false historical accounts. And as atheists we can totally understand this logic and methodology, because false history and preposterous biblical rhetoric is really all biblical cultists have to go on. We’ve already individually and collectively made it clear that we aren’t buying any of it and we’re not giving any of them the benefit of doubt on those books. They’re like children who steadfastly stick to their story and continue to blame their invisible friend in the closet or their Teddy Bear for spilling their milk on the carpet. “It wasn’t me Mommy … it was Teddy!” This has essentially been the extent of all religious deflections for their despicable actions throughout the ages. They continually blame others for exactly what they themselves are doing, they have absolutely no concept of self-evaluation, no sense of remorse, are unapologetic, etc. This event shines a big spotlight on them. And even if the alleged events on Oct 7 happened like is being reported, and even if the terrorists are not all Jewish, but also Christain and Muslim (and history has shown this to be reality) … it still doesn’t diminish from the fact that the basic principle of the Abrahamic political Ideology is anti-human – and it simply cannot co-exist with honest and peace-seeking loving human beings. It is a distortion of true human nature. The biggest hoax of Judaism, the greatest trick ever played on mankind was to get us to accept the biblical definition of human nature as being inherently evil. I submit that if that were true, and if human beings were ‘naturally’ evil as the bible teaches, we’d have killed ourselves off to the point of becoming inbred, and we’d have gone extinct long ago. The fact that we survived at all proves we are inherently loving and supportive with an instinctive need for togetherness. This dog-eat-dog world we were all born into is 180 degrees opposite to true human nature. The people that run this world and got us into this mess all accept the biblical ‘God’ – but to me it looks more like ‘Godzilla’.
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Hi, Bob,
A very stimulating post, thanks for doing it. There is much there that I agree with and some things that I don’t. The whole issue is deeply complex, so, in the interest of brevity, I’ll confine myself to just one point that you raise.
You ask that as atheists we should “..use every available measure at [our] disposal to bring this to public awareness…”.
I think that the public is acutely aware of the bloodshed occurring in Gaza. I doubt that atheists – individually or collectively – could raise awareness any further than it currently is. In fact, considering that this whole, sorry state of affairs is, at its core, about religion, large sections of the public and both sides in the conflict might just tell us to ‘go forth and multiply’ because – being atheists – we ‘wouldn’t understand.’
In the hope that the madness ends soon, sincere best wishes.
Barry
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