We know better than that.

In Exodus 21, god "lays down the law" for the Israelites, and it's pretty horrific to say the very least ...

Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

Do these sound like the commands of a good moral law giver? How do you reconcile such commands with the all-loving father-figure picture of god that Christians try to paint (read all of Exodus 21 - I dare say it gets even more absurd)? The answers to these troubling questions become a great deal less troubling when we make a simple assumption ... The bible was written by men and was in no way divinely inspired. Think about it. Men had slaves. They probably derived some sick sense of empowerment or pleasure from beating the living shit out of these slaves, so they wrote down that it is god's law that they shouldn't be punished for such behavior lest they literally beat a slave to death. Thall shall not kill, after all.

We know better than that.

I hear religious people say all the time that "we are created equally by god." NO WE ARE NOT. First of all, some children are born mentally retarded or physically deformed while many are not. But more than that, where a person is born - either geographically or socioeconomically speaking - has a huge impact on his or her ability to live a good life.

And consider this. There is not ONE verse in the bible that suggests that all human beings have a certain set of rights and liberties. It angers me when Christians take the words of a great secular thinker and put them in the mouth of their god. God did not say that all people have inalienable rights - among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson said that. God was too busy instructing people how hard to beat their slaves and commanding the death by stoning of a man found to be picking up sticks on the sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).

We know better than that.

And don't let Christians tell you that the god of the Old Testament is the angry god and Jesus brought peace and love and "changed the game" so to speak. I will say a few points on this matter. First, at least in god's case, after he was done slaughtering you and your family and pillaging your land and dividing up your virgins among his chosen people (Numbers 30:15-17), he was done with you. You were dead. As leading atheist, Christopher Hitchens, puts it so well, "Not until gentle Jesus, meek and mild, comes along" are we taught of the eternal fires of hell. Isn't that a little hypocritical of Jesus? He commands us to love our enemies, but if you're his enemy, you burn in hell for all eternity?

And slavery is still preached in the New Testament. There are many examples, but check out Colossians 3:22-25. These verses instruct slaves to obey their masters "in everything." Why? Because as verse 24 reminds us, it is Christ you are serving. So not only does Jesus think slavery is ok, but he "smooths it over" by substituting himself for a slave's earthly master. As an interesting aside, these commands address slaves directly, but I highly doubt slaves could read in the 2nd century (yet more proof that the bible was written by stupid men). Further, in Luke 12:47-48, Jesus says that a slave who knowingly disobeys his master should receive more lashes than a slave who unknowingly disobeys his master. Granted, it is in the form of a parable, but I think Jesus - the all-loving guy that he is - could have come up with a more morally tasteful setting for his story. If you ask me, using the treatment of slaves as a teaching example means that you think slavery is a natural, acceptable part of humanity.

We know better than that.