Sunday, September 29, 2013

Exodus Part IV: Just a Few Questions

That Which You Receive

Do you believe in the Holy Bible as the absolute truth and Word of God? Do you think that every bit of the Bible is true? What things in the Bible are not intended to be taken as actual and literal fact? Do you have any questions about what is written in the Bible? Do you have answers to any of the questions listed here?

We now continue with Part IV of the questions I have in regards to the book of Exodus in the Bible. This is the final posting of questions in this series for the book of Exodus.

1. Exodus 23:9
“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Questions
     1) So, the LORD tells the people of Israel to not oppress the sojourners...but what about the people who are NOT sojourners? What do the people of Israel do to those who are living on the land?

     2) Sooo...if someone is passing through you leave them alone, and if someone lives on the land as a permanent resident you kill them and take whatever is theirs?


2. Exodus 23:19
19 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Questions
     1) This is interesting, right? So, remember when Cain tried to offer up to the LORD the best of his veggie crop and God did not want it? So is God now taking vegetables?

     2) If God truly is the same as He ever was why didn't He accept Cain's veggie offering? Why were the veggies not acceptable when Cain offered them, but now they are suddenly good enough?


3. Exodus 23:20
20 Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.


Questions
     1) Why, if God is omni-present, does He send an angel before the people of Israel? Why would God find the need to do that if He is everywhere all the time from infinity past to infinity future?


4. Exodus 23:29-30
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.


30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

Questions
     1) Do you think that it is possible that the explanation the LORD gives here is total bullshit? 

     2) Do you think that the reason why God was really taking His time was so that He could conjure up novel ways to kill the people that He wanted off of the land?



5. Exodus 24:1
Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.


Questions
     1) Okay, here is a really really dumb question, alright? If God is everywhere, every place, all the time, no matter what...how in the fuck can people worship Him from afar? If God is everywhere you can't escape Him, so how in the howdy-doodie is this trick pulled off?


6. Exodus 24:5-6, 8
And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.

And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar.

And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Questions
     1) Isn't this utterly disgusting? Throwing blood about? That had to have smelled lovely.

     2) Why does this God/LORD of the Bible demand so much BLOOD? WHY? Why not demand more love and hope and peace and things that build up and do not tear down? This constant killing every damn day of animals can't possibly be very good for the psyche of the people actually doing the killing, right?

7. Exodus 24:9-11
Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up,

10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

Questions
     1) So these people, these HUMANS are having a meal with God? Literally?

     2) Why isn't a description of God given? It says that they SAW the God of Israel...but then leave out a description. Why is that?


8. Exodus 24:18
18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Questions
     1) Did you notice that Moses is on the mountain for forty days and nights? What other things in the Bible took place in the forty days and nights time frame? 

     2) At the time of the flood didn't God make it rain forty days and nights?

     3) When Jesus is tempted in the desert by Satan, wasn't Jesus out there for forty days and nights? 

     4) Why does this number keep occurring?

9. Exodus 29:12-14
12 and shall take part of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and the rest of the blood you shall pour out at the base of the altar.

13 And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, and the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar.

14 But the flesh of the bull and its skin and its dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.

Questions
     1) You know what this sounds like? Like some kind of spell and ceremony. Sooo...so long as you follow the RIGHT God it is okay to pay homage to Him and include pagan symbols as part of the process of worship?

     2) Is the basic gist here that sin can be forgiven by killing something innocent and without blame, opening up the body of whatever was killed, and then playing furniture re-arrange with the internal organs?


10. Exodus 29:20-22
20 Then slaughter it, and apply some of its blood to the right earlobes of Aaron and his sons. Also put it on the thumbs of their right hands and the big toes of their right feet. Splatter the rest of the blood against all sides of the altar.

21 Then take some of the blood from the altar and some of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and his sons and on their garments. In this way, they and their garments will be set apart as holy.

22 "Since this is the ram for the ordination of Aaron and his sons, take the fat of the ram, including the fat of the broad tail, the fat around the internal organs, the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat around them, along with the right thigh.

Questions
     1) Why do so many Christians go on and on about the idol worship or evilness of witchcraft when they have shit like this in the Bible? How can some people sit there so smugly in their supposed salvation and claim that rituals and the like of other faiths are bad or evil?


11. Exodus 29:38
38 Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day regularly.

Questions
     1) This is so fu**ing disturbing. Every day...every damn day God wants these baby lambs killed and offered as a burnt sacrifice? How in the fuckey-doo can people NOT see the problem with this?

12. Exodus 31:15
15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.

Questions
     1) Now isn't this a nice commandment? You WILL rest or I will kill you? Where is the balance and justice here?

13. Exodus 32:10
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

Questions
     1) That's right. Every time God wants to make someone great, be it an individual or a group of people, He always makes it quite clear that someone is going to have to pay the party fee, right? 

     2) Since God is God why doesn't He just use His powers to remove the people in the land He wants to give to the people of Israel and place them somewhere else? Give them something in fair exchange for the land taken. Why does God insist on making everything so goddamn bloody and cruel?

14. Exodus 32:11-12
11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.

Questions
     1) Do you want to know why the wrath of God waxes hot? Do you think that it is possible that God uses His wrath and anger to instill fear so that the people will not see Him for the rip-off He really is?

15. Exodus 33:2
I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Questions
     1) Again, why why WHY do we have God sending out angels to do things He is supposed to be able to do all on His own? Where oh WHERE is God's omni-presence?

16. Exodus 34:5-8
The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.

Questions
     1) Look at verse 5 here. It says the LORD descended in a cloud and proclaimed the name of the LORD. Uhmmm...so does this mean He is literally proclaiming His own goddamn name?

     2) How about verse 6? The LORD proclaims Himself as slow to anger. RIGHT. What do you think slow to anger means?

17. Exodus 34:9
And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Questions
     1) If God is everywhere wouldn't He already be in the midst of them?

     2) Sooo, is it just met or does it seem like the only thing God takes the people of Israel for is a bunch of fools?

18. Exodus 34:12-14
12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.

13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim

14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

Questions
     1) Since when is being jealous something to brag about?

     2) Is God's supposed jealously supposed to impress people?

19. Exodus 34:24
24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.

Questions
     1) No one shall covet their land? Are you serious? This is one of the more easy to be proven wrong promises that God makes from time to time, right? Because if the people of Israel are in their promised land...right now as we speak...why do they continue to have the troubles they have in regards to who has control of lands in the area?

     2) Have the people of Israel gone up to appear before the LORD as of yet this year?

20. Exodus 35:1
Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do.

Questions
     1) You know what? If God wanted these people to follow all of these rules and keep them close to their heart, why didn't He just get into their heads...just like He did with Pharaoh (except here He wouldn't be hardening the hearts)...get into their heads and place within them the understanding of God's laws?

     2) Why does God ALWAYS have someone else speak to the people for Him? Does God wish to remain a secret? A mystery? Why won't God simply go directly to the people? Does He not trust their judgment?

21. Exodus 35:2
Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

Questions
     1) The penalty for working on the Sabbath is death? Isn't that just a tad much? I mean, I can see issuing demerits or putting someone in the equivalent of a brig, but KILL them for working on the Sabbath? 

22. Exodus 35:5, 22
Take from among you a contribution to the LORD. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the LORD’s contribution: gold, silver, and bronze;

22 So they came, both men and women. All who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the LORD.

Questions
     1) This is absurd, right? Considering what the people of Israel have witnessed as far as God's behavior and what He does to those He hates or is angry at these two verses are stupid. Of course the people of Israel will be 'willing' and will 'give' these precious metals. What else are they supposed to do? 

     2) They see what God does to people when He is pissed. Do you think they will take a chance on their own lives by not giving this ridiculously self-centered God whatever it is He has asked for?

23. Exodus 40:26
26 He put the golden altar in the tent of meeting before the veil,

Questions
     1) So it is okay for the people of Israel to have altars and animal sacrifices where blood is sprinkled hither and thither, but it is not okay for members of other religions that do the same? Care to run that by me again?



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