Many of you know that we “believe in” *
1. a pantheon of deities, of which all are human constructs;
2. a syncretic monotheistic Prime-Mover-type deity that set this existence off and then retired.
The other day in reading Richard Dawkins’ “God Delusion”, we came upon this description of the Abrahamic god of what is often called the Old Testament. We repeat it here for your amusement and perhaps your enlightenment. Do read the book, for one thinking man’s take on a conventional path.
Our hope is that you will find as much validity in Dawkins’ description as we have found, as one recovering Anglican and one recovering Baptist. Here’s what he says.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
We urge you never, never to let a young person read a single page of the Bible without close adult supervision.
Blessed be! Gavin and Yvonne
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* Yvonne says, “Wait a minute! ‘Believe in’? Sure, I acknowledge that lots of jujus-on-sticks exist; that lots of Jungian archetypes exist; that there are thought forms or (gasp) the idea of unseen specialists, if you will, in this or that aspect of human experience and longing. But believe in? Thanks, but I’m voting with my feet. Give me Guides and Elder Ones any day. Them I find credible, indeed essential, to my own spiritual path. Others need to find their own way.
