Father Abraham, Something Else

My hot take.

There are parts of the Bible and the attitudes of followers of the Bible today that I consider wrong.

It's funny. I hear Christians all the time saying there's stuff in the Koran (which most Christians haven't read and won’t read in context) that are “just down right immoral.” These parts that Christians have learned about (being in a competing religion using this information to demonstrate religious superiority of their own teaching by comparison) prove “the Koran offers bad advice for modern times.” They say, “it sends messages that promote behaviors that go against basic morality and the Golden Rule.” They insist that, “if Muslims have evolved with the times, they would denounce those portions of the Koran, edit or update them or issue statements as a unified religion against those particular attitudes and teachings.”

They act as though the Bible doesn't have any content like that.

The real problem is that the Bible does have really deranged content that isn't dealt with in accordance with modern human rights, modern attitudes or moral standards. There are parts which are worthy of rebuke well within the context in which they were written and are still being taught. Leaving them unacknowledged promotes very bad behavior or at least an attitude of racist superiority of a particular tribe and promotes a subhuman view of all other tribes.

What's worse is that most of the people who read it, most not even being of that particular tribe are OK with it and when broached, defensive of the implied superiority. Not only does it have the potential to promote certain unChristian attitudes, these attitudes are realized in the hearts, minds, words and even deeds of many Christians. Yet, it's a big old blind spot for them. They can't see how their attitudes toward vile, racist politics have been engendered by this kind of racist double standard being pounded into their heads as “godly ordained” religion since birth.

They don't recognize the dangers of blindness to those passages which they are all too familiar. What’s funny is how many Christians have blind spots to when they are taking scripture out of context, or reading it how they chose to interpret it based on the times- sometimes but not others. I hear Christians all the time saying “you can’t pick and chose what laws you want to follow in the Bible” while doing just that. You really can’t know the Bible well and still believe you aren’t picking and choosing which OT content still matters. I’m not even addressing stuff most people who are Christians have never heard of. I’m not even talking about some text in Exodus and Leviticus that seems harsh and foreign, like if a woman has her period in a bed, the law says to burn the bed. I’m not even talking about stuff Christians don’t read, or learn and that they gloss over. What I am addressing in this post is stories they know well.

They seem to have these moral loopholes for these well known stories because first: blind spots. Once exposed: rationalization but ultimately: “God can’t be wrong.” Worse than that, they are allowing it to dictate their feelings and behaviors in foreign affairs today- right down to exterminating and participating in genocide of people they view as trespassers and subhuman in a territory they consider “promised land” based on the racist tribal superiority engendered in these passages. It’s unrighteous teaching perpetuating unrighteous behavior. None of this unrighteous teaching is backed by the new teachings of the Christ, but the Christians won’t fix it.

Here's my really easy example.

When Sarai "gives her slave" to Abraham to bear a child for them, AS IT IS WRITTEN, this implies Sarai consented to giving her husband her PROPERTY to use as a sexdoll for the purpose of making a baby to secure their genetic lineage. As Hagar is a slave and as it is written that she was offered as a slave, it is implicitly saying that Hagar's consent was irrelevant and not given. What do you call having sex with someone whose consent was not acknowledged, not given and irrelevant? If only they had a word for it.

This is Jeffrey Epstein, creep level stuff that according to the Bible, God, the religion and almost everyone who practices it gives Father Abe a big old pass.

I have heard the excuse made that slavery was common then and not seen as an infringement. It has been said “no one could have been conscious of the wrongness of the practice as slavery” as it was such a common thing at the time that “it seemed like a guarantee.” This is clearly not true from the context of scriptures, that the act of slavery was considered acceptable and they couldn't see anything wrong with it. When any of the OT people of Israel gets enslaved, it's depicted throughout the OT as a terrible thing. So clearly, what it demonstrates isn't that they felt the act of slavery was acceptable. It implies at best that they were only warm to the act slavery when it happened to what they deemed lesser races/tribes of people. But it’s worse than what they personally thought about it. It demonstrates a double standard wherein according to scriptures, God sees a certain tribe as superior and deserving of natural rights whereas others... It would seem by the portrayal of the god's attitudes as written in these passages by the people doing the enslaving that their god thinks less of the people enslaved by his chosen people. This proves that saying they are "chosen" is indeed racist. It is more loaded than just a euphemism of some kind of hope their god has for them. They aren’t just favored. They are in their god’s eyes superior creatures on earth meant to dominate other humans based on this depiction of god’s attitudes toward slavery as an act shifting in relationship to his favorites or at least if the Bible is the Word of God, as depicted by the Bible.

None of this can be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus about God or how to live. As such, Abraham and others who participated in this racist, inhumane double standard and all stories that perpetuate it might henceforth be denounced.

Now imagine thousands of years of reading a text that implies tribal superiority is a god given right. We are living in modern times. The year is 2022. People who are not in or of that tribal lineage and many who are have awakened enough to not hold these kinds of racist beliefs any more. They see those beliefs as evil. They were rightfully horrified to find Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking slaves and impregnating them in a ranch in Arizona. They felt that his lover (wife) Ghislaine procuring these young girls for him was unconscionable.

…Or they think they do. All the while, they still read that story to their children over and over as fundamental teachings and can only feel "uncomfortable" with the fact that Abraham was acting in a way that by modern standards would be considered unfaithful to Sarai- even though she is the only person in the story whose consent was explicit. That's like only being uncomfortable that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't faithful to Ghislaine and giving the rest a pass.

When asking 10/10 Christians, the real issue with what Abraham did was that Abraham didn't wait on God's timing. Imagine telling Jeffrey Epstein that. "Hey dude, all the young girls you raped and enslaved and whose babies you kept as your own to procure your genetic lineage like a racist madman, we really don't care. But you should have waited to have a kid with Ghislaine. You really disappointed us that you were so impatient. God didn’t tell us all that other stuff wasn’t ok, so let’s assume that you might have not been acting your best when you enslaved and raped a girl. Oh, and you sorta took her child as your own. I’m trying to think if there’s a word for that. You just need to work on your trust issues and patience is all." Seriously?

I have also heard that the story highlights how God used and uses imperfect people to do great things. Also that Ishmael, the child born of that consummation also fulfilled a higher purpose. Paraphrased, “God's ends justify the means.”

Do they? Isn’t wrong wrong, even if some glory kinda comes from it? Like if I steal from you and your child starves to death as a result, but I give the money to someone who ends up buying a ticket and winning the lottery and hires a bunch of artists who happen to donate their proceeds to stop human trafficking (and shit like what Abraham did) does that make my original theft less worthy of condemnation? Just curious.

Isn't that depiction of him as “imperfect” also sort of understating the severity of the matter of what happened? Is it just imperfect to impregnate a young female slave by definition without her consent to propagate your genetic lineage? Will we one day look back and find the actions of Jeffrey Epstein can be written off in the same way? Like he did all this crazy stuff to ensure his genetic line and to uphold literally the nation of Israel- so it's not exactly what God would have wanted, but in the end, this stomach turning, demonic human is the hero that some dystopian future generations may hold up as a role model to their children.

Where are the scribes to add that to the new scriptures? Let's get this ball rolling!

Could not Epstein's story of all the worst things he did be written down in our absence or future eradication, be read to future children who are taught only to be uncomfortable with him being unfaithful to Ghislaine and become doctrine indicating that this horrible behavior was just a kind of “less savory” moment that was used for a higher purpose? Could Epstein's life one day be used as one of god's most wonderful success stories? That seems insane.

It's ok that the story is still in there. I’m not trying to be dishonest. No one teaches this as a behavior to model, not explicitly. It's ok that we teach it as “what not to do.” But I think simply “what not to do” is the tip of the god damned iceberg of what more needs to be taught now, once you recognize this super humongous, fucking flaw in this story. Call it what it was. Call it heinous. Call Abraham and Sarah vile, disgusting, rapists, racists, slavers, kidnappers, creepers, monsters by any standards, then or now. Point out the wrongness of it today. Stop pretending like the God of Jesus was or is ignorant (from ignore) with regard to that part of the story simply because you don’t see anywhere in the part of the book that the slaving, kidnapping, rapist, racists told about themselves that was passed down through their own children not born of the rape doesn’t indicate otherwise.

Or maybe do what you have been advocating the Muslims do for the Koran for years. Suggest an update or a point in history wherein, this will no longer be taught as acceptable Christian teaching. It’s there, but it’s looked at in explicitly revised proper context. Practice what you preach to the Muslims.

Denounce the portions that are not in accordance with what the God of Jesus would have found acceptable and that do not mesh with what the God of Abraham found acceptable or turned a blind eye to. These G/gods are inconsistent and incongruent. This story and others like it cannot be told as part of the inherent "Word" of God. In fact, the "word of God" as quoted from scripture isn't the Bible. There wasn't any Bible when those passages were written.

Start making sense of this religion. The OT at the very least was a story told by men who were tribal supremists. It's filled with many good stories with good moral values, but also with their tribalist preferences and views and biases before the teachings of Jesus came along. Teach the truth. The Bible was written by men with a cultural and tribal bias. Teach that this kind of racist vision being handed down of what their version of god was amenable to had nothing to do with what God really felt or how God really reacted to Abraham's behavior. It's rather how elite eugenicists from a particular tribe created a god in an image that was friendly to them and their tribe. They were madmen sometimes imagining a god told them it was okay, moreover imperative sometimes that they performed unconscionable acts, many of which do not make a fucking bit of sense.

If not... At least acknowledge that as it is written, it has and still does give people a somewhat racist pass for what everyone can agree is evil behavior.

In the end, what Epstein did outside of enslaving women to procure his own personal lineage was likely to secure the "god ordained" Jewish Nation State, the promised land for what many believe are chosen people. He and his lover have abundant ties to the MOSSAD. He may be a kind of silent hero to Zionists everywhere for what he did to bend people in the most elite, powerful positions to secure the "promised" land rights to "god's chosen people." Albeit, this was all via unsavory blackmail, ritualistic child trafficking and God knows what else. Will the ends or the prophesied end times justify the means?

Throw me a bone here, Christians.

Abraham=Epstein

Prove me wrong.