Features   ><   Full Blog

Category Archives: Judaism

Rape in the Bible

What does the alleged source of true and absolute morals teach us about rape? Thanks to Dwight for the find. Your Thoughts?

Share

My Atheistic Reply To Rabbi Adam Jacobs’s Open Letter To The Atheist Community

Oh boy, I just love getting letters!  So, you can only imagine my enthusiasm at getting An Open Letter To The Atheist Community from a Rabbi Adam Jacobs of The Huffington Post Synagogue: My dear atheist friend, Gosh, he holds me dear! The first point I’d like to explore is that there really are no [...]

Share

NonStampCollector Issues A Challenge To Monotheists

In a nutshell, the question is, what proof is there that there is one god and not multiple? Your Thoughts?

Share

Daily Hilarity: Children’s Guide To Religion

Thanks to Das for the hilarious find: “Sometimes I think God drinks my tears and pees them back on my life.” Your Thoughts?

Share

Sex And The City 2 (And Religion) (And Feminism) (And Race) (And Homophobia)

Diana Bass complains: It just wasn’t very funny to see four smart American women parading western consumerism and sexualized identity in blatantly insensitive and anti-religious ways in a traditional world. Wait a minute, what she describes may not be funny but it’s certainly the best thing I’ve heard about the film from everything that I’ve [...]

Share

Daily Hilarity: Jew York

The pretty hilarious lyrics make up for the pretty painful singing and rapping: Thanks to Robert for the find! Your Thoughts?

Share

Divine Serial Killer

Dwindling In Unbelief provides a full chart of all biblical claims of divinely sanctioned killings, replete with death totals and links to blog posts discussing the details of most of them.  A handy resource. Your Thoughts?

Share

Pat Condell's Case Against The Catholic Church

After a tasteless joke early on, he’s justly scathing and deserves to be heard: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKg4HLsu5gE&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Christians are too blithe when they distinguish the evils perpetuated by Christian institutions from those same institutions’ claims to moral and spiritual authority as founded by God or, at least, to their being the church of God at all. How [...]

Share

120 New Jersey Clergy Petition In Favor Of Marriage Equality

via Rosi Efthim, Pam’s House Blend, and Friendly Atheist: 120 Clergy from 19 Faiths in the State of New Jersey Monday, January 4, 2010Senate President Richard J. Codey Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr. The State House Trenton, New Jersey 08625 Dear Governor Codey and Speaker Roberts: We are 120 clergy members across New Jersey from [...]

Share

The Logistics Of Noah's Ark

A really terrific video from DarkMatter2525 which spells out the numerous impossibilities involved in the Genesis flood story: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I225Vcs3X0g&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Daniel Florien has helpfully typed up the major points for easy reference here. Your Thoughts?

Share

The Old Testament Continues To Be An Inspiration

…for judging one’s enemy’s children and anyone who has broken religious commandments worthy of death: Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in [...]

Share

The Ten Commandments

The Thinking Atheist explores the big ten: It’s not as impressive as his previous endeavors—a couple of the digs are pedantic and stretching to find something wrong—but there are a couple interesting points.   His masterpiece in case you missed it when we featured it this summer was “The Story of Suzie.” Your Thoughts?

Share

One God Or Many?

ProfMTH is back with a new video on a biblical inconsistency: Your Thoughts?

Share

Crumb's Genesis

You can buy the book here. I had the chance to flip through it last night and it was spectacular. (via Culturebot) (via The New Yorker) (via Windows and Doors) See Blake Andrews’s site for more pictures of Crumb’s Genesis, contrasted with photos by Hin Chua for representing the Garden of Eden story. (via) Go to Boing [...]

Share

Biblical Slavery, In Context

Does the Bible REALLY endorse slavery, when read in CONTEXT??? Yes, yes it does. Leviticus 25:44-46: ‘As for your male and female slaves whom you may have– you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live [...]

Share

Challenging Myths Of Eden

Below is a thought-provoking video which critiques the notion of fallenness from several angles.  It builds off of one point I’ve wanted to write about for a while and that’s that the non-literal reading of Genesis is just as false as the metaphorical one.  When religious people argue that the Garden of Eden story is [...]

Share

The Bible On What's To Be Done With Non-Virgin Brides

via 13Suppose a man marries a woman, but after going in to her, he dislikes her 14and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, “I married this woman; but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.” 15The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the [...]

Share

Biblical Scholar—Western Ethics Come From The Greeks, Not The Bible

Biblical scholar and professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield, Philip Davies writes that the idea that religion bestows ethical value on human life is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.  First he lays into the divine command theory throughout the Torah and proverbs as genuine routes to proper (or even defensible) moral motivation [...]

Share

An Increasingly Messianic Military In Israel?

Seems like ours is not the only military turning to religious zealotry and desire for holy war for motivation. Your Thoughts?

Share

If You Disobey God's Laws He'll Make You Eat Your Own Children

Seriously, this is straight from Deuteronomy 28:53 which you can find marvelously illustrated with legos by The Brick Testament (whose renderings of a series of God’s curses are helpfully grouped together by Dwindling In Unbelief) And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy [...]

Share

Were The Israelites Polytheistic?

Robert Wright makes an interesting argument: Consider this innocent-sounding verse from the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy as rendered in the King James Version, published in 1611: When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of [...]

Share

Daily Hilarity: Mr. Deity Defends His "Eye For An Eye" Policy

[yo

Share

"At This, God Sent Poisonous Snakes Among The People"

Click here for more amazing pictures dramatizing Bible stories using legos!

Share