It's Time to Ban the Bible

Bosworth: An Online Humor Magazine Brimming with Unearned Self-Importance

Vol. 2 No. 2

February 2008

Iowa City, IA

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It's Time to Ban the Bible

After much thoughtful debate with everyone who matters (i.e. me), I am convinced the time has come to ban the Bible. No, I'm not a Muslim. Nor am I trying to be radical or intolerant. Quite the opposite. Against my better judgment, I have been forsed to conclude that the Bible is a pornographic, violent, mean-spirited quagmire of illogical, irreverent, and outdated ideas which contribute to all kinds of mayhem and criminal thinking. Reading the Bible is dumbing people down beyond acceptable levels of stupidity and nonsensical modes of thinking.

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Take the big controversy about Evolution versus Creationism…you know, the hot button topic as to the origin of human beings. Educators are locked in a pitbull battle with religionists because Book One of the Bible tells people that the earth was created in six days and there were only two people living on the planet. The entire discussion has landed in the political arena, with conservatives backing the Old Testament version and liberals taking the side of Darwin's theory.

What's the problem with being descended from an ape? At least you would know who your ancestors are. If it were just Adam and Eve that means everybody is the product of incestuous genetic mutation. If I want to be cousins with everybody else I'll move to Tennessee.

Remember how certain people were sure that the earth was flat? They got that idea from the Bible. That's why the powers that be tortured Galileo... because he observed that the world was rotating around the sun and not the other way around. After years of keeping him in prison and pulling out his fingernails he "recanted" and withdrew his scientific calculations and "confessed" that the sun rotated around the earth. Bible believers wanted to make sure Galileo agreed with them even though they were ignoring the real evidence which proved he was right. They were mad at him for trying to teach them the truth.We should have learned from that episode just why the Bible makes people do dumb things. But no. We have had to go on with another half a millennium compounding the assault on our right to know up from down.

Then there's the whole "gay" thing. The Old Testament calls for gay people and cross-dressers to be stoned to death. Where's the logic in that? I've seen enough Bible movies to know all the men wore dresses in those days...and why should I care what people do in the privacy there own homes (or tents).

It says in the Bible that the rain falls equally on the just and the unjust. I take that to mean that the Bible is telling me that someone with an umbrella isn't "better" than the jerk who stands out in the rain, but you sure feel better staying dry. And obviously, having an umbrella isn't "evil." So why should we be listening to advice from some three thousand year old weather report?

The Old Testament also says that we come into this world with nothing and we leave it just the same. …but standing out in the rain is very likely going to make you sick...possibly you will end up with pneumonia...so what's the benefit to me from all this "advice" which is just plain wrong, as well as being cryptic and nonsensical.

Anyway, I'm not going to stand out in the rain even if I have an umbrella, and I sure don't have any wish or fascination with "facing the elements," nor do I spend three seconds a year thinking about what a great time I might have if I were an outdoorsman. Let's be honest with ourselves… looking down at the grass and not up at it doesn't require reading a book meant for religious believers.

For some people, life is a heap of b.s. and misery mixed with episodes of violence, war, poverty and famine…after which you die. I guess the Old Testament is perfect for that mindset because people back then were real busy wiping each other out, torturing people they thought were obnoxious, and bowing down to all kinds of idols. Stupid people in their stupid superstitions needed supernatural stories to validate their idiocies. But I'm not buying into that dismal thinking! And neither should you! The bleeding hearts have dominated the world stage of intellectual rationalization long enough. Now is as good a time as any to call for a complete ban on reading the Bible.

But we can't wait for the religious wonks to figure all this out. We have to do something now. So, you can stop reading the Bible and save yourself from all that "burning bush" philosophy and urge others to do the same.

It's self-evident, the Old Testament has made people intolerant to other people's differences and peculiarities…and if there's anything I can't stand, it's all those bigots and self-righteous Bible thumpers who are really mental midgets adhering to Biblical thinking and logic as if it were God Almighty telling them what's right and what's wrong!

Think of it this way…would you want to drive a 1937 Chevy (with a top speed of 45 mph) down the interstate when everyone else is going 70? Of course you wouldn't. So why would you want to adhere to the thoughts and ways of some book that is thousands of years old? If you did, you'd free all your slaves every seven years,   stone your disobedient children to death, and refuse to eat a perfectly delicious meal of lobster tails just because it says not to in the Old Testament.

Let's face the facts. The Old Testament is no longer able to do the job it was meant to do, namely giving you something to believe in that isn't real.…And, anyway, we have our own modern day sacred rituals and cultural values…like cheeseburgers, Superbowl Sunday, and the almighty buck.

Even Jesus was so sick and tired of the Old Testament that he had his followers write a whole NEW bible of their own…and that was two thousand years ago! So what would make anyone keep whipping a dead horse just because they still want to go somewhere "the old fashion" way.

Without relying on the Old Testament we can be unfettered to ponder how to make sense of our morality and look to the frontiers of human thought to tackle the self-absorbing equations of mortality, sexuality, and hegemony. Using big words is as much a right as it is a   sacred exercise in ontological methodology. We can all agree on that. And we all think about what is the meaning of life…some of the time. Right?

Why should we settle for mythic stories that boast of supernatural miracles and God telling people what to do when we can assuage ourselves with existential psycho-babble and nihilistic nuances of nothingness…and show off to all kinds of people that we might have read Kierkegaard or Sartre.   All that "myth" stuff is just so much nonsense meant to opiate all of us.

I'm tired of all the sanctimonious hypocrits who are trying to pin their Old Testament "values" on everybody else's donkey.

I could lay an egg with all the phony-balony we are forced to accept when it come to Old Testament "rituals"... like people swearing on the Bible. Even the President gets "sworn in" with one hand on the "good book" and the other reaching into my privacy to catch me doing some indecent act that I can be condemned for...and why is that? Because I don't go along with all the evangelical right-wing fanatics trying to make me into something I'm not. It makes me want to swear on a stack of... cheeseburgers!

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