How To Choose A Religion: The Flowchart

via holykaw

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My new favourite website: Reasons.org

On resolving the "incest problem":

Not until the time of Moses were laws established forbidding a man from marrying a sister or niece. The timing of this command makes perfect sense biologically, for genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations.

On the mystery of Cain's mark:

The necessity of this mark indicates that the population of the human race had reached (or would reach) such a level that mistaking Cain for someone else would be a problem.

The text says nothing about what kind of mark Cain received or about its being passed on to his progeny. I see no basis for believing that any one of the races of man carries the mark of Cain.

Read the rest of Finding A Wife for Cain on Reasons.org

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The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses

Click here for The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses by Cracked.com

This one's my favourite:

This is a man's law, right here. When Conan became king at the end of Conan the Destroyer, you can bet he made sure there was a rule just like this his first day in office. "Ladies, we respect your right to resolve disputes in whatever manner you feel necessary for the situation. But, DO NOT GRAB THE JUNK." 

The words in the Bible are actually those of God, speaking to the Hebrews and taking time to add the junk-grab rule into the supplemental commandments that didn't make it into the original 10. This had to be right after God realized his plan for a male-dominated society had a fatal flaw, which is that the women could prevail in any conflict simply by grabbing the men's junk. 

Now, you nervous, liberal types are complaining that this is barbaric and misogynistic. Perhaps, a little context helps. Just a couple of pages earlier, in Deuteronomy 23:1, we get this:

"Emasculated by crushing?" Gah! Everything in the Bible has to be understood in context of the times these people were living in. And, apparently, these people lived in a time when "crushing" the nuts was so common that the crushed-nuts victims were an entire demographic that had to be accounted for in the law. Call these commandments savage if you want, but if you were God, how many nuts would you have to see "crushed" before you overreacted? We're thinking the answer is two.

Of course, if you're not a believer and don't think this "grab the nuts, lose a hand" commandment is from the almighty at all, then it becomes obvious what happened: The rule was handed down by some angry clergyman within the first minute or so of having his junk crushed. All perspective tends to go out the window at that moment.

Go here for all of The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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The Man Who Can't Be Killed

Cain said to the Lord,
"My punishment is more than I can bear... I will be a restless wanderer... and whoever finds me will kill me"

But the Lord... put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
~Genesis 4:13-15

Why was this even necessary? Why does god want to protect Cain?

Is this the bible's way of showing us that god is forgiving and merciful?

And what was the mark that was so hideous that even potential Cain-murderers would shy away from taking his life?

And, without loudspeakers, e-mail or Twitter, how did "everyone" know & recognise that THIS was the mark of the man who can't be killed?


• There's a good explanation here, including how Cain's face was turned completely black. Racist uproars ensue, yes.
• Roger Kovaciny, professional bible translator, provides a pretty convincing answer here. There was no change in skin colour, apparently.


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The Bit Where Cain Kills Abel

I admit I thought god was too much for playing favouritism with Abel.

I mean, they both brought stuff. Maybe Cain didn't have a particularly good harvest that year? All the bible says is:

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ~Genesis 4:2

That's hardly enough information to determine the actual reason why Cain only brought "some of the fruits of the soil".

Did you think that maybe Cain, being the elder child, wanted to keep some of the fruits for his parents too?




• The Q'uran has a similar story of Adam & Eve's sons killing each other, but no names are mentioned.
• A few scholars suggest the periscope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers.
(source)

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Sell The Vatican, Feed The World

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God's First Formula

via 100 notes