Chapter Ten
What’s NOT in the Bible
Conservative Christian Beliefs in Conflict With Biblical Teachings
-“Mindbender”, internet post
Conservative Christians often like to speak of creating a society more in line with the values that are found in the Bible. Yet, when we examine where they stand on social issues, we find that they aren’t even supported by their vaunted scriptures. They want to steer America closer to a theocracy but feel free to violate their own sacred text as it pleases them to do so. This is not to say that adhering to a Bronze-Age tome and its backward laws is a good idea for a modern society but if Americans are to trade in our secular republic for a theocracy, it would be nice for us to know that we can at least expect our new masters to play by their own rulebook.
Arguably, three of the most common issues brought up by conservative Christians are abortion, gay rights and public endorsements of Christianity (the latter including such issues as prayer in public school, public monuments and government religious-themed slogans). They also defend their holy holidays under the false notion that these holidays were originally Christian. In support of their positions, we often hear the following repeated slogans:
- “Life begins at conception.”
- “Marriage = one man and one woman.”
- “We need prayer in the schools.”
- “Remember the reason for the season”.
As we will observe in our analysis of the Bible, none of these four slogans are biblically supported.
“Life Begins at Conception”
Where did they get this idea? It certainly never says that anywhere in the Bible. The closest passage they can dig up is a quote from Jeremiah taken out of context:
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee…
The remainder of the verse (not quoted on their billboards) is as follows:
Jeremiah 1:5 …and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Taken in context of the whole chapter, it’s clear that this passage is speaking of Yahweh’s ability to see into the future. Yahweh had seen that Jeremiah would be successfully born without complications and mature to the age where he could hear that bit of revelation. It says nothing about when the soul enters the body.
The Bible at no point ever implies that abortion is murder. In fact, beating a woman and causing her to miscarry (essentially causing her to abort her unborn fetus) is specifically not treated as murder. Bold emphasis added:
(KJV) Exodus 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
(KJV) Exodus 21:23-25 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
For the sake of clarity, the New Oxford Version of the same passage (with the same bold emphasis added) says:
(NRSV) Exodus 21:22-25 When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.[1]
Interestingly, it’s the woman’s husband who is treated as the injured party in such an event, evidenced by the fact that the husband, not the wife, is the party who demands payment. The offender damaged his property.
Conservative Christians often try to twist the meaning of that passage by claiming verses 23-25 indicate that causing a miscarriage is punished by death. They neglect the phrase “yet no further harm follows” in verse 22 and “if any harm follows” in verse 23. The KJV uses the Jacobean English phrases “yet no mischief follow” and “if any mischief follows” but either translation is consistent in intent.
By the light of verse 22, if you cause a woman to miscarry during your brawl but do no further injury, you have to pay a fine. We know that a miscarriage is essentially killing the fetus. It’s like an abortion that is caused either by nature, misfortune or injury.
By the light of verse 23-25, if you kill the woman, you pay with your own life. If you knock out an eye, knock out a tooth, cut off a hand, cut off a foot, burn her, wound her or cause her pain in any other way, you suffer a similar punishment.
It’s clear, from these and other Old Testament laws, that murder is punished with death. If the authors of the Bible believed that “abortion = murder”, then causing an abortion by beating a woman should be regarded as murder and therefore should be punished with death. There would be no need for such phrases as “any further harm” or “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.”. Death could have been prescribed in verse 22, making 23-25 unnecessary.
Where Is the Benevolent God Who Loves All the Children?
It’s also clear from reading the Bible that Yahweh does not love children or consider them to have any right to life:
Turn to Leviticus 27:6 and you see a census being conducted where a monetary value is placed upon all human life. No child under a month old is considered to be worth anything and children in general weren’t as valuable as adults. This passage is cited in Chapter 7, “The Not-So-Good Book” because it is a sexist rule, valuing females less than males. It’s also a passage cruel to children, as it values them less than adults.
Numbers also performs a census in which children under a month old were not counted as people:
Numbers 3:15 Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them
Anyone who has ideas that the Christian god loves all the little children should read these verses of the Bible:
Exodus 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 20:9 For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.
Deuteronomy 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
First Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Second Samuel 12:14-15 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
Second Kings 2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Psalm 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Jeremiah 19:9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters…
Hosea 9:16 …yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
In fairness, Jesus did express love for the “little ones”:
Matthew 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
Unfortunately, Jesus also endorses the Old Testament laws:
Matthew 15:4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
In sum, the Bible does not regard killing a fetus as murder, places no value on the life of a newborn baby less than a month old and has little or no regard for the lives of children.
Nature’s God and the Topic of Abortion
To quote the American Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths self-evident” that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.[2] The question is at what point we become living, sentient, self-aware beings and assume “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle” us. [3]
Put in metaphysical terms, at what point do we have a soul?
It’s not really life we respect per se but rather sentience (self-awareness, being a thinking, feeling being). The proof is in how we chop down trees and take anti-biotics that kill countless bacteria cells, all of which involves killing or harming beings that are technically “alive” by the biological definition. We kill these living things without a second thought. Why? Because trees and bacteria aren’t sentient. It’s fellow sentient beings that we empathize with, not mindless plants and single-cell organisms. We respect their right to life in other sentient beings because we would want our right to life respected in turn.
It’s fair to say that many who call themselves “pro-life” take the position they do on abortion because they’re under the misconception (so to speak) that abortion kills a “baby”. Sometimes pro-choice billboards promote this misunderstanding by disingenuously using pictures of post-birth babies. Does abortion really violate someone’s right to life? Is the fetus being aborted a sentient, self-aware, thinking, feeling being?
To answer this question, we should turn to what Biology (the study of the real God’s work) has to say. While science has not yet unlocked the mystery of sentience, we do know that the brain is involved. Self-awareness is a higher brain function. Regardless of whether the brain is the seat of the soul or whether the “soul” is just a poetic metaphor for consciousness, the brain is an essential component.
Therefore, no brain = no sentience.
If a being isn’t sentient, it’s classed with the mindless plants and single-cell organisms. We don’t empathize with the trees as we cut them down. There’s nothing to empathize with. The tree doesn’t have a “soul”. It’s not a self-aware being. You can’t hurt its feelings or frighten it.
Therefore, no sentience = no right to life.
At conception, the zygote is a single-cell organism. It’s no more a living being than a bacteria cell. The slogan, “life begins at conception” is patently wrong. The “morning after pill”, a source of controversy for conservative Christians, can’t be regarded as “murder” any more than taking an anti-biotic. Most likely, the transition from potential life to life occurs much later in the pregnancy. To be conservative, this line could be drawn as early as week 20, when significant brain tissue develops and the fetus begins to show conscious reactions to the outside environment (such as loud noises).[4] At week 20, the pregnancy is well into the second trimester. Nearly all abortions (88.5%) occur during the first trimester while only 1.4% occur after 20 weeks.[5]
At this point, pro-life advocates will fall back to the “potential life” argument, saying something to the effect of, “The fetus is not yet a sentient being but will be one day.”
Putting aside the possibility of a natural abortion (miscarriage) or a stillbirth, either of which dispatch with the certainty implied by the “will be” part of that argument, the argument itself has no merit. Consider this alternate case to understand why: A student walks into class. The teacher asks if he did his homework. The student replies “Um, not yet”. The teacher takes this answer to mean “no”. Most of us understand the idea that “Not yet” = “No”. If the fetus isn’t yet alive, it’s not alive. When it does become a sentient being, then it will have the rights of a sentient being. Not before.
Other pro-life advocates will desperately resort to an “argument from ignorance” (a logical fallacy). They might say something along the lines of, “We don’t know for sure that the zygote isn’t sentient. It might have a soul. Shouldn’t we err on the side of caution and outlaw abortion until we know for sure that it isn’t sentient?”
There are two problems with this argument. First, a negative is impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. For example, let’s say someone comes up with the argument that trees have souls. Can you prove that a tree doesn’t have a soul? Sure the trees don’t seem responsive but perhaps they just lack the ability to respond. Maybe they’re screaming on the inside when you cut them down and the poor things are helpless to do anything about it. Maybe we should outlaw the entire lumber industry until we can prove that trees don’t have souls? This example underscores just how silly it would be to begin legislating on the basis of an argument from ignorance.
The second problem with this argument is such legislation runs contrary to our criminal justice system. Before you can indict someone for a crime, you need to prove that a crime was, in fact, committed. If your going to make the charge of “murder”, you must first prove that a real, living person was killed. Otherwise, we could just as easily have all lumberjacks arrested for homicide and require their defense attorneys to prove that the trees that were cut down weren’t sentient beings.
In conclusion, the woman’s right to choose what happens to her body is not in dispute. What is at issue is whether or not the unborn fetus constitutes a living sentient being who’s right to life trumps the woman’s right to choose. To settle that issue, we should prefer medical and scientific information to the dogma of right wing organizations.
Stem-Cell Research: No-Brainer Decision Meets Brainless Politicians
Imagine that you’re on the old game show called, “Let’s Make a Deal”. You’re handed a jar full of frozen embryos. These embryos are mindless microscopic organisms, no more alive than amebas. Behind the curtain are millions of real, fully-grown, sentient human beings who are suffering and dying from terrible debilitating illnesses, from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s. You can keep the jar of embryos or you can trade the jar for the chance to help the people behind the curtain. What do you do?
This choice should be a no-brainer. Of course you should risk the microorganisms for the opportunity to help your fellow sentient human beings. Perhaps there’s no guarantee that the research will produce a result tomorrow but it costs nothing of value to try. Killing microorganisms isn’t murder. Letting a patient die when they could be helped is negligent homicide. As previously mentioned, microorganisms are mindless. Suffering and dying human patients are not. Microorganisms are not sentient. Human beings are. Our priority should clearly be to help our fellow human beings.
Sadly, many American politicians don’t have their priorities straight. Some of them have decided that the microscopic mindless embryos are more important than helping millions of suffering human beings. The policies of a modern 21st century superpower are being shaped by mystical speculations that have no logical basis. It’s nothing less than a travesty that America is currently refusing to fund a promising line of medical research purely because of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo akin to astrology and voodoo magic.
“Marriage = One Man and One Woman”
Conservative Christian groups tell us that “one man and one woman” is “God’s plan for marriage”. Have you ever noticed that they never provide chapter and verse? That’s because the Bible endorses polygamy. “One man” is certainly part of the biblical marriage equation but multiple women are certainly acceptable practice.
Polygamy in the Bible:
- Lemach has two wives (Gen 4:19)
- Abraham has two wives (Sarah and Keturah, Gen 25:1) plus concubines (Gen 25:6)
- Esau has three wives (Gen 26:34 and Gen 28:9)
- Jacob has two wives (who were also his cousins) plus two concubines (Gen 29:11-30:24).
- Esau adds more wives to his harem (Gen 36:2-3)
- Gideon had “many wives” (Judges: 8:30)
- Elkanah has two wives (1st Sam 1:2)
- David had seven wives (2nd Sam 3:2-5) plus any number of concubines (2nd Sam 5:13) and later adds Bathsheba (2nd Sam 11:27) and Saul’s wives (2nd Sam 12:8)
- Solomon has 700 wives and 300 concubines (1st Kings 11:1-3)
- Ashur had two wives (1st Chron 4:5)
- Rehoboam married 18, not counting 60 concubines (2nd Chron 11:21)
- Abijah had 14 wives (2nd Chron 13:21)
- Jehoiada married two women (2nd Chron 24:3)
Yahweh never condemns any of these men for having multiple wives (even when he lays down numerous other sexual laws in Leviticus chapter 20). He apparently approves of such arrangements.
Deuteronomy has a special rule about how to treat the children of your multiple wives if you like one wife more than the other:
Deuteronomy 21:15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
It doesn’t say whether or not this rule applies if the firstborn was from one of your concubines. Regardless, the fact that there is a rule regulating polygamy indicates the Bible’s approval of the custom.
Jesus also approves of polygamy with his parable of the ten wives and their bridegroom:
Matthew 25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
Christians sometimes quote Genesis 2:24 in an attempt to argue that the Bible establishes the practice of monogamy:
Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
In the absence of all the other verses that condone or regulate polygamy, this verse might be taken to imply monogamy. However, it doesn’t specifically preclude taking more than one wife and it seems more concerned with the issue of growing up and leaving the home. It seems to be saying, “Don’t be a momma’s boy”.
It seems Yahweh’s “plan for marriage” is one man and as many women as he pleases. “One man and one woman” is a phrase you will not find anywhere in the Bible.
“We Need to Bring Prayer Back Into Schools”
Jesus would disagree, if the Bible were any indication.
Matthew 6:5-6 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Jesus, at least according to the above passage, didn’t seem to care much for those who wear their religion on their sleeves.
“Remember the Reason for the Season”
Conservative Christian media pundits are known to get especially prickly during the time around Christmas and Easter when they apparently perceive their sacred holidays to be under assault by the forces of political correctness. “Remember the reason for the season,” is the oft-heard admonishment but what is the reason for the season? Was Jesus, assuming he really lived, born on Christmas and resurrected on Easter?
It may come as a surprise to some Christians but the Bible never specifies the day of Jesus’ birth. Christians use December 25th as the day to observe this alleged event but how did such a tradition come to be if it was never established in the Bible?
The answer is the same as many other traditions of Christianity: it was borrowed from an earlier Pagan tradition. December 25th was the day of Mithra’s birth, as historian Robert Price discusses in “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man”:
“Brumalia marked the winter solstice according to the old Julian calendar. This was the day when the days, having shrunk to their shortest, began to elongate again. This meant, in mythic-symbolic terms, that the sun god (Mithra) had spent his force, grown old and died, sunk beneath the sea on the horizon and entered his tomb in the caves beneath the earth, and would rise from there, reborn and rejuvenated, on the solstice. As each new day was longer, by a modicum, than the one before it, stretching on into spring and summer, the sun god grew and grew into full manhood. December 25, then, was the start of that cycle.”[6]
“The season”, that is, the December 25 holiday, had its origins in Pagan religions and it was celebrated long before the alleged life of Christ. Other mythical divine characters that predated Christianity, such as Dionysus or Osiris, were also allegedly born on December 25.[7]
What about Easter? How did Christians come to celebrate this holiday? The Bible never specifies that Jesus was resurrected on Easter Sunday (although all four gospels establish that it was a Sunday).[8] This too came from earlier Pagan traditions. Easter was the principle festival of Mithraism.[9]
Curious note about the four gospels and their specification on which day of the week Jesus was resurrected: Matthew and Mark both say it was the morning after the Sabbath, the morning of the first day of the week.
Matthew 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week
Mark 16:1-2 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
The Jewish Sabbath was originally on Saturday, at the end of the week. Christianity moved the holy day to Sunday as it absorbed Mithran traditions.
Is it any coincidence then, that “saint” Paul, one of the principle founders of Christianity (arguably the founder of Christianity), was from Tarsus, which was the center of Hellenistic Mithraism?[10] One could argue that Christianity is actually more derivative of Mithraism than Judaism.
As a side note, Christianity as a religion is in violation of the fourth commandment:
Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
By moving the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday, Christians have forgotten the Sabbath and have certainly not kept it holy. These are the same people who want to spend our tax dollars to build a monument to the commandments, at least one of which they apparently don’t keep?
Fundamentalist Christians don’t need to remember the reasons for the seasons; they need to learn about the real reasons for the seasons.
Conclusion
Conservative Christians profess a desire bring their nation back to the values outlined in the Bible but apparently they’re not afraid to make things up as they go along.
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