Compiled by Ruth Hurmence Green
Independent reading of the bible is a traumatic experience for someone taught from childhood that the bible is a "book about love." Side by side with some morally defensible admonishments, one finds repeated instructions to hate and to kill. The Mosaic law, that commands the reader to kill the child who curses its father and mother and to stone the woman not a virgin when she marries, was upheld by Jesus, "every jot and tittle."
The "loving" gods of both the Old and New Testaments emerge as mean and vengeful, possessed, as Bertrand Russell said, of "an uneasy vanity."
The apologist for the bible, who insists that it is just an occasional passage that is a problem, overlooks the avalanche of mass murders commanded and perpetrated by the biblical Lord. Live burials, beatings, burnings, cannibalism, buying and selling of human beings, and the chopping off of heads, hands, feet, ears and plucking out of eyes all fill the pages of the "Good Book."
Here is a listing of bible images. When you read it you will know why Thomas Paine called the bible "a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize." You will know why kind and discerning individuals in our society object to the bible's use in public ceremonies. You will understand why educational organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation are endeavoring to work for the absolute separation of state and church.
Anne Nicol Gaylor
Freedom From Religion Foundation
| A |
A delicate woman doing evil to her children and eating them A fair woman without discretion resembling a jewel of gold in a swine's snout A human body wallowing in blood on the highway Abandoning orphans An angel killing 185,000 warriors in one night Angels consorting with women of earth Asking your neighbors to help you stone a stubborn son to death |
| B |
Bears devouring 42 children Beating slaves to death in stages Beating your child black and blue Boiling and eating your son Breaking and chopping up human bones and seasoning human flesh, flaying flesh off bones Burning books, denouncing science, closing mouths, becoming fools Burning women accused of witchcraft and men accused of wizardry Burning your only daughter alive to fulfill a promise Burning your son as a sacrifice Burning 250 princes alive Burying a criminal's wife and children alive Buying a wife with 200 male foreskins Buying your brother to be your slave Buying your rape victim for your wife |
| C |
Castrating men for the Lord Chopping off heads, hands, feet, ears and plucking out eyes Circumcising a child with a sharp stone Circumcising thousands at one time Circumcising yourselves to the Lord and taking away the foreskins of your heart Cursing a tree and three cities Cursing children and animals Cursing people with blindness, leprosy, hemorrhoids, consumption, madness, sickness, starvation, thirst, pestilence Cutting up a woman's body and distributing the pieces |
| D |
Dashing little ones against the stones Delivering people up to the torturer Designing an eternal torture chamber for most people of the world and describing their screams Devils tearing peoples' bodies to get out, jumping into pigs, talking and walking about, turning into snakes Discovering women's secret parts Dividing the prey, to every man a damsel or two Drinking poison, handling snakes, jabbering nonsense Drinking the blood of the slain Drinking your own urine and eating your own excrement. Urinating on public walls Drowning women, men, children, embryos and and animals by inches |
| E |
Eating human flesh and drinking human blood Eating the flesh of your own arm, the flesh of your children and of a friend Eyes consuming away in their holes and tongues consuming away in their mouths Exorcising devils from people's bodies |
| F |
Fastening human beings to trees Filling the altars and courtyards with blood of sacrificial animals Filling the courts with the slain Filling the sword of the Lord with blood Forbidding men to touch the bodies of women and the dead Forbidding women to learn, adorn themselves, speak in church, teach or visit friends Forcing a woman to marry seven brothers |
| G |
Giving your children away Gods impregnating human beings |
| H |
Hacking a man to death Hanging up heads against the sun. Putting children's heads in baskets. Nailing a head to the ground Hating, abandoning and delivering your family up to authorities. Being rude to your mother and sisters Hating this life and this world to gain the next. Despising your body Having repeated sexual intercourse in public view with your neighbor's wives and your fathers' wives Having sexual relations with your wife and her mother Healing with spit and magic and oil and laying on of hands, faith, a brass snake, aprons, handkerchiefs, prayer, by dipping into a pool, a garment hem, a lump of figs, and shadow. Hiding in vineyards to capture girls as they dance Hiring a hitman to kill your brother Human entrails gushing out |
| I |
Ignorance being elevated above wisdom. People being told to become as children Incest: raping your sister; impregnating your daughers; marrying your sister; impregnating your daughter-in-law Inflicting childbirth pain as punishment |
| K |
Kidnapping virgins for sex partners Killing a child to punish the father Killing all your grandchildren and nephews Killing all your servants Killing a man's children and replacing them with another set Killing everyone breathing Killing man, woman, infant, suckling Killing your brothers Killing your enemies with swords, hailstones, slingshots, arrows, and by crushing, fiery serpents and hornet stings, flaying off their skin and whipping them to death with an animal bone and an ax goad Killing 50,000 innocent persons because a few looked into a box |
| L |
Letting your neighbors help you stone and burn your children alive Lions breaking bones of husbands, wives and children |
| M |
Making innocent pay for misdeeds of the guilty Making people disobey so you can punish them Making the sun stand still Making wives barren, ravishing them and giving them to someone else, all to punish their husbands Making your child "pass through the fire" Mountains melting with blood; rivers and moon turning to blood; the sword of the Lord filled with blood; shedding of blood for redemption; pour out blood by the force of the sword Mutliating the dead |
| O |
Obtaining slaves by buying the heathen, taking captives, buying a brother Offering your virgin daughters to perverts One thousand women belonging to one man |
| P |
Pimping for your wife Plotting the death of your paramour's husband Punishing a whole people for one person's sin Purifying virgins with 12 months of perfume and oil Putting a knife to your child's throat Putting babies to the sword Putting brothers, companions and neighbors to the sword Putting the sword to all the firstborn of an entire country Putting your feet on captives' necks |
| R |
Refusing to heal a child because of its race Refusing to share your children as food for friends Revilling and abusing the sick, handicapped and deformed Ripping up pregnant women |
| S |
Sacrificing human beings to gods Seducing your own father and kinsman Selling your daughter into slavery Selling a whole family to pay a debt Selling yourself into slavery Sending your wife and child into the desert alone Separating oneself from those of another doctrine Seven women taking hold of one man Sexually abusing women to death Shedding blood for atonement for the soul Slaying old and young, maids and little children and women, but sparing the men Slavishly obeying husbands, parents, masters, state, gods Spreading excrement on human faces; spitting in your child's face; washing your feet in blood Stoning and burning whole families Stoning women for being rape victims Stoning and burning women for not being virgins Stoning your brothers, son, daughter, and wife for worshipping differently from yourself Stoning a man for picking up sticks Stoning a youth for blasphemy Stripping women of their clothing and jewelry |
| T |
Taking women and children as spoils of war and dividing up the virgins and babies Tearing off women's breasts Ten virgins awaiting one bridegroom Throwing a woman from a window to be run over by horses and eaten by dogs Throwing babies into a river Thrusting people through and stabbing them in the belly with a concealed dagger Torturing animals by hanging them, tying them together and setting their tails on fire, drowning them, and afflicting them with plagues Torturing victims with briers, thorns, harrows, saws, passing through fire, the brick kiln, plagues, eternal fire, frogs, lice, flies, thirst, hunger, boils, and sores "Trying out" virgins Turning a used woman into the streets at will |
| U |
Using a virgin to give an old man heat |
| W |
Warning women not to become mothers Wild beasts, fowl, dogs and swords devouring flesh Wiping out whole cities with napalm or war Women kissing men's feet and drying them with their hair |
| Z |
Zapping innocents--throughout. |
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