Monday, July 2, 2007

The Impeachment of Jehovah



The Pan-Dimensional Court of Truth for the 5,000th Galactic District has convened on Earth’s Moon to consider Articles of Impeachment against “Jehovah, a.k.a. Yahweh.”

The Articles accuse “Jehovah, a.k.a. Yahweh” of falsely claiming to have created the Earth and all the living creatures on it in a single week, to have established laws which human creatures must obey if they are to escape unjustly hideous consequences, and to have chosen a certain small group of humans as his favorites to be exalted above all others and to subjugate all others.

‘Said chosen group, known as Hebrews, Jews, or the Children of Israel, are the authors of certain books collectively known as the Tanakh or “Old Testament” of the Bible which set out the purported words and acts of Jehovah. Because it appears that the accused, Jehovah, has either fled the jurisdiction or never existed in the first place, and because all witnesses in the case are dead, the evidence which will be placed before the Court consists solely of said Tanakh, and so it is in fact the Old Testament which is under judicial scrutiny.'

‘It might appear pointless to impeach a possibly nonexistent deity based on documents whose authors have been dead for thousands of years, but among not only Jews but also the much greater multitude of Christians on Earth the Old Testament is still held out as holy scripture, “the word of God”, and is influential today in shaping the minds of many humans, as well as relied upon by certain of the “Children of Israel” for fraudulent claims to ownership of real estate which have resulted in prolonged bloodshed.'

The allegations supporting the articles of impeachment are:

1. Incompetence

Although claimed to be perfect, all good, omnipotent and omniscient, Jehovah created a world into which evil could repeatedly come. To wit:

Creating a first man and woman so defective that they quickly did the one thing he told them not to do and as a consequence were subjected to permanent punishment rather than wisely taught.

Creating a first family so dysfunctional that one sibling murdered the other.

Selecting as his “chosen people” a whining tribe which again and again ignored his commandments.

Creating angels which could and did rebel against him.

Demonstrating a lack of confidence in himself by cruelly testing loyal Hebrews like Abraham and Job to see if or prove that they would function according to his blueprint.


2. Favoritism and Lack of Proper Judicial Temperament

In spite of claiming to be the creator of the Earth and heavens and all the creatures on Earth, making an exclusive contract with a small tribe and promising to exalt them above all others. “I am the God who created heaven and earth. [T]he kings shall come from you and shall rule wherever the foot of the sons of man has trodden. I shall give to your seed all the earth which is under heaven, and they shall rule over all the nations according to their desire; and afterwards they shall draw the whole earth to themselves and shall inherit if forever.” Book of Jubilees 32

Making promises to his “chosen people” which would inevitably lead to strife, war, and usury: "The LORD has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession. . . Then he will place you high above all the other nations he has made. He will give you praise, fame, and honor, and you will be a people holy to the LORD your God. . ." Deut 26:18-19 "All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Yahweh; and they shall be afraid of you. Deut 28:10 You shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath." Deut 28:12-13

Using terror tactics even against his favorites:

But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you: A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin. You will have few children. Your land will have few crops. Your cattle will be cursed with few calves, and your flocks will have few lambs and kids Yahweh will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish. Yahweh will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well. Yahweh will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. Yahweh will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with sore boils, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. You will become a thing of horror. All the nations where the LORD will send you will make an example of you and ridicule you. Deut. 28:12-45

The LORD said to [an angel], “Go through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.” 5 But to the others He said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity and do not spare. 6 “Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark.” Ezekiel 9

A jealous and avenging God is Jehovah; Jehovah is avenging and wrathful. Jehovah takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He maintains wrath against his enemies. Nahum 1:2


3. Excessive force

When displeased with his chosen Israelites, drowning every human on Earth except Noah and his passengers.

Destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when offended by the actions of some of their inhabitants without even specifying what they had done to incur his wrath. “Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.” Gen 19:24

I, Jehovah thy God, am a jealous God. I punish children for their parents' sins to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. Ex 20:5

32 Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. Numbers 15


4. Emotional Instability; Arbitrary and Capricious Behavior

Punishing Moses by preventing him from entering the promised land because instead of “ordering” water to pour from a rock to satisfy the thirsty Jews as Jehovah had told him to do, Moses struck the rock with his rod to bring forth the water.

Commanding Abraham to kill his own son and then telling him not to at the last moment.

Making the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the Jews living among them, and making Moses, the Jews' leader, highly regarded in Egypt, but in spite of the divine power to influence Egyptian public opinion, murdering all of the Egyptians’ first-born sons in order to encourage the Egyptians let the Jews leave Egypt.

Turning a woman to salt because of a trivial infraction: “But Lot’s wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” Gen 19-26

“This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.” Gen 17:10-11


5. Cruelty Unbefitting a Deity

Allowing Satan to horribly torture his most devoted servant, Job, and kill Job’s servants and children, in order to win a bet with Satan.

Inventing the concept of eternal damnation.

Creating the plagues of Egypt. ‘Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.” So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on men and animals.’ Exodus 9:8-10.

Passing over all homes in Egypt and killing every first-born son (except sons of Jews), even while predicting, “loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.” Exodus 11.


6. Racism

Commanding his chosen tribe to avoid mixing with other peoples through intermarriage or otherwise.

“I am Jehovah your God, who have set you apart from the peoples.” Lev. 20:24

In Ezra 9, the abhorrent racial mixing of the Jews with other peoples was reported to some Jewish leaders: “So that the holy race [holy seed] has intermingled with the peoples of the lands.” The Hebrew listeners were appalled, and Ezra was so upset that he ripped his clothes and pulled out tufts of his hair and beard.

On that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people. . . So when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the alien mixture. Neh. 13:3

Jehovah’s policy toward people displaced or captured by Jewish invasion – as Jehovah “clears away many nations before them” -- is that the Children of Israel “shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 3 Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them. . . For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” Deut. 7 "If you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you” there will be terrible consequences for Israel. . . “a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish. . .” Joshua 23


7. Substandard Skills in Personnel Management

Placing his newly minted humans, Adam and Eve, in a garden with an attractive fruit tree from which he ordered them not to eat even though he knew or should have known that they were sure to eat from it.

Putting the Ark in charge of an alcoholic captain even though it contained the only survivors of Jehovah’s genocide.

Selecting as his chosen people, and Earth’s rulers, a stiff-necked Semitic tribe which proved so erratic and disobedient that he chastised, threatened and punished them repeatedly over centuries.


8. Suppression of Arts

“Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Ex 20:4


9. War Crimes and Genocide

Jehovah said to Moses, “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel. See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many.” The spies reported: “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey. . . Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large.” 30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. 2 So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, “If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.” 3 The LORD heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Numbers 13

33 Then Israel turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out with all his people, for battle. . . 34 But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites.” 35 So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land. Numbers 21

After Israel conquered Jericho, “They utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.” Joshua 6:21

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites. . .” ‘And the Jews warred against Midian, as Jehovah commanded Moses; and they slew every male. They killed the kings of Midian. The sons of Israel captured the women of Midian and their little children; and all their cattle and all their flocks and all their goods they took as loot. They burned all the cities where the Midianites lived and all their settlements .’ When the Israeli army returned from battle Moses was angry at its officers and asked, "Why did you let all the women live? Put every male child to death, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man. But all the female children who have had no sex relations with men, you may keep for yourselves.” Numbers 31

15 comments:

  1. Amen, brother. This is why the Tidalgrrrl is an Atheist. Besides the horror of everything in the Old Testament there are the contradictions upon contradictions of the writing throughout all of the Bible/s (plurality depending on religion).
    There's a part of me that would absolutely love it if an invisible fairy were my special friend. I got over that.
    Now I'd like the rest of the world to realize that it doesn't need to be threatened with eternal damnation in order to be good or moral. Christianists don't hold the patent on good works, you know.
    One of the reasons I don't mind the LDS church is that they don't preach Hell and damnation. It's the same reason I don't have issues with more philosophical religions, and why my skin crawls when I'm around evangelicals.

    I will say that I attempt to respect people who have religious beliefs, because I'd like to be respected for the opposite. However, that doesn't mean I have to respect religions in themselves, because I believe they lead to more evil than any other one cause in the world.

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  2. Tidalgrrrl, I agree with every word. It's a pleasure to find the first comment (and maybe the only comment) on this post is from you and not in the form of a bundle of fire and brimstone from the sky.
    (See how that Old Testament stuff warps the mind?)

    Thank you very much. I worked for about four days on the research and writing of "Impeachment of Jehovah", and I'm glad somebody read it and appreciates it.

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  3. Well Fleming I don't know how to say this when you have been so uniformly gracious and kind about my own writing.

    I know that there must have been an enormous sense of provocation to sting you into this post. But I don't feel easy about what you have written.

    Surely no man has the right to tell another man "Your wife is ugly".

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  4. Vincent, your comments are appreciated as always.

    I will tell a man his wife is ugly only if he or someone else tries to force her on me.

    As you know, in my Introduction to this post I tried to explain why an “Impeachment of Jehovah” was justified and timely. I plan also to write a follow-up with more of my thoughts on the subject. I will be glad to exchange ideas with you on this touchy topic, but I’m still recovering from doing hours of research to prepare “The Impeachment of Jehovah”.

    Please note that almost all of my post consists of direct quotations from the Old Testament. True, I introduced and categorized them in what might be called a satirical framework, but I did not distort or falsify anything. The Book speaks for itself.

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  5. the book speaks for it`s self.

    brilliant piece of research and satire, well done fleming.

    vincent, i don`t know you brother but how could you defend such a position?

    and regarding the provocation to post such a commentary, i grew up abused by a catholic filled with old testament ire.
    the hair up his ass was precisely that of an insane tyrant who would set his children against eachother, rage at his wife and dring himself stupid.

    it used to bring me to tears but now i understand the indoctrination of obedience and so i don`t so much forgive but take refuge in the fact that my childhood makes at least some sense.

    the movie 21 grams with sean penn touched on some of these issues.

    thanks again for posting fleming.

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  6. Well-researched, well-argued... Nonetheless, I submit that God is not responsible for the sins and deceits committed by those who purport falsely to describe Him/Her. Who said that the 'Bible' represented the 'Word of God' in its entirety? Humans with ulterior motives. Who reduced an infinite Being to a finite flawed character in a racist melodrama? The Hebrews and those who afterwards set their stamp of approval upon their outrageous claims. I submit that the 'Word of God' cannot be reduced to human language or human comprehension. The flashes of truth that are in every religion usually are those with universal application. Even with respect to the so-called 'New Testament' and the life of Christ, there have to be many errors. After all, he didn't write any of those books, did he? Every disciple put forth a different tale, and a different interpretation. How can any one be a literalist??? One of the best quotes from the Bible is that from Corinthians: 'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known.'

    In this life, in this state of being, we cannot see more than a part of the whole. How then can any religion purport to be the 'last word' on the subject?

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  7. Incidentally, tidalgrrrl said: 'There's a part of me that would absolutely love it if an invisible fairy were my special friend. I got over that.'

    Well, I personally think one should 'get over that'. Why shouldn't every one be able to have an invisible fairy as a special friend? Life is what we make it. The only limitations are those we impose on our own imaginations. I don't want to 'get over' my desire for magic in my life, ever.

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  8. All I can say is that you live in a different world on the other side of the Atlantic, that I cannot understand. I don't know if religions are terrible there and forced upon others, or whether it is the accepted sport to attack others' most precious beliefs.

    It is one thing to criticise Israel and Zionism. That is fair, because politics belongs to the strong and brings suffering to the weak.

    The only fair reason to attack someone's holy books is if you need to free your own self from their influence. (Even then one should be sensitive to others who do not experience that need to free themselves.) For every person whose childhood was ruined by religion there are probably others who found joy in sharing their most exalted feelings with others, in a mutually accepted context.

    I appreciate you have put research into this, Fleming, but I give you my immediate shocked response from the heart; not as a religionist but as an emerging atheist who continues to ponder the mysteries of religions and their appeal to the best and not just the worst in our brothers and sisters.

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  9. Freyashawk- therein is the rub. I don't tell anyone what to do. I only said what I have done, which is to get over needing an invisible fairy friend. Like others with religion it seems you think you know better when you tell me to get over that.
    I personally don't presume to tell anyone what to believe.

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  10. well, isn`t it true that we shouldn`t discuss religion or politics.......

    to try to sort it out is what we are all trying to do so discussion is good, but the reflex to the ad hominem is not good form in debate.

    but they do say also that you are to come out fighting and protect yourself at all times.

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  11. I would echo freyashawk:
    Well-researched, well-argued... Nonetheless, I submit that God is not responsible for the sins and deceits committed by those who purport falsely to describe Him/Her. Who said that the 'Bible' represented the 'Word of God' in its entirety? Humans with ulterior motives. Who reduced an infinite Being to a finite flawed character in a racist melodrama? The Hebrews and those who afterwards set their stamp of approval upon their outrageous claims. I submit that the 'Word of God' cannot be reduced to human language or human comprehension"

    And would add that I actually found your post Fleming somewhat 'on the nose' and so only scan-read it.

    There are only a handful of books in the Bible celestially inspired. Job be one.

    According to my 'friend' Swedenborg the Bible is written in seven layers of parable. To read it in a fundamental sense is to, well, fall into the trap of fundamentalism, very dangerous in adults. There is also an implication by Swedenborg that because the Jews were 'prone to profanation', they were treated as a special case and ' . . had never the mysteries of faith revealed to them, so that it was never even openly declared to them that they should live after death; nor do they know to this day, that an internal man exists*

    which I kinda translate in that they were a bit er . . backward, you know, maybe a sandwich-short-of-a-picnic. (Not that I'm suggesting such nowadays).

    I've always railed against much of the Bible viewing it largely has having been written by old, white, men-in-power. But there are indeed some gems within.

    I am influenced by Swedenborg and when I dip into the Bible I always try to interpret it as a drama that is going on within me, where I will readily confess, there is a great deal of strife, turmoil and sometimes warring between my various 'selves'. This puts a whole new slant on things when I interpret places and people in the Bible as internal aspects or emotional states within myself.


    *Swedenborg Correspondences- 'Jews'.

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  12. Link, I love your comment and wish it had been here sooner so more people would have seen it. I think I'll quote it within a new post.

    "On the nose" must be an Australian idiom that doesn't mean "exactly right" as it does here. What's it mean to you?

    Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but you and Freyashawk both seem to think that I was criticizing God, when in fact I tried to make clear that I distinguish the real God from the Jehovah described in the Old Testament. So I've agreed with you two all along that that "God is not responsible for the sins and deceits committed by those who purport falsely to describe Him/Her."

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  13. link, whoever wrote the words we know as "the bible", as much as they were patriarchal and of some substantial age, were entirely not anglo-saxon (or as you said, white).

    the original texts of the bible were written in hebrew, greek and possibly sanscrit......

    all of which were, and still are middle eastern and mediterranian languages.

    i`m sure your error was purely academic and the correction will be recieved in kind.

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  14. "Don't let religion get in the way of spirituality" was said to me by my dad as the Jehovaha's Witnesses left our door.
    The Principles of the Ten Commandments get distorted with standards of approval but the essence of Bible stories (and even Science fiction) can be quite profound.
    I got quite a kick out of reading this post.

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  15. Brad, welcome! Thanks for the refreshing comment. It's especially pleasant to hear that you enjoyed this particular post.

    So you've also endured the visits of the Jehovah's Witnesses. You're lucky to have a father who would say something so wise. His remark really was profound.

    I realize that the Jehovah's Witnesses, like clothing store salesman, are in a tough position: If they ignore you, you might just go away, but if they try to sell you something you'll be uncomfortable and try to get rid of them. Let me do my own shopping in silence, I say.

    Now I'm looking forward to visiting your blog.

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