Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Bible verses that bug me part 3! The bear incident
Here's another in an ongoing series! Robert Heinlein first made me aware of this verse in his book Stranger in a Stranger Land. Here's the verse: 2 Kings 2:23-25.
2:23 He went up from there to Bethel. As he was traveling up the road, some young boys came out of the city and made fun of him, saying, “Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!” 24 When he turned around and saw them, he called God’s judgment down on them. Two female bears came out of the woods and ripped forty-two of the boys to pieces. 25 From there he traveled to Mount Carmel and then back to Samaria.
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So...yeah. This has to be a tough verse for Christians. Frankly, this has to be a tough verse for Jews too. It's a little redundant but let me recap.
1. Kids make fun of bald guy (who happens to be a prophet of "God")
2. Kids get killed by bears sent by "God".
Fun! (more below the fold)
I'm sure the reason that Heinlein chose this particular passage is because that it's a tough one for apologists to reconcile with a loving God. After all, 42 of the "boys" in the passage get killed by bears! How exactly does that mesh with the New Testament tenet of "turn the other cheek"?
I think I'm done here. This one speaks for itself.
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something very imprtant to
something very imprtant to be noted, in the king james version, the term used is some youth, that exact term is applie to joseph while he was 39 years old, and they were not murdered they were cut up, it says "mauled" in the bible and when that word is translated directly from hebrew means, to be cut up. they were telling elisha a mentee of elijah who asscended into heaven to "go up". They were questioning elisha's validity of a prophet and insulting him. basically in a nutshell why havnt you gone up into heaven if your supposed to be a prophet like elijah. so forty two adults by our standards today heckled, insulted, and basically called the prophet a phony, which is calling his God a phony, and all they got for it was to be cut up by two she bears. seems to me they got off pretty well, one last point to be noted. there were 42 of them, its quite possible there was a physical threat to elisha, who by this time is pretty old.
any of u actualy know who u
any of u actualy know who u are talking about here? im assuming NO coz i havent seen their name here once - so max points for ur 'research' into the scene before spouting off...typical behaviour of non-believers,omitting details of certain things to suit urselves. so il shed a lil light,shall i? its elisha - a servant of God. wots happening in this passage in 2 kings & wots happening in this forum is quite similar,ironicaly. the youths in the passage (all of u guys) were not merely slaggin this man off coz he was bald but actualy slaggin off a symbol of somethin they couldnt accept,understand nor relate to (God) - so they hated it & everything closely related to it, so they dealt with it the only way they knew how - ignorance - exactly the same way none of you can accept,understand or relate to anything in this actualy very simple passage in God's Word! the bears were sent by God Himself to deal with the youths for their lack of respect toward a spiritual leader of their day. i dont believe in karma, but i do believe in galatians 6:7 - God is not mocked. so i doubt very much that God will send any of yogi's friends to tear u to shreds, but i am in no doubt that He will give u an extreme judgement (read revelation & daniel - im saved & know i wont experience any of that, but on behalf of all of u who are unsaved, it scares ten bells outa me) - unless of course u repent & believe in Christ who died on the cross for all our sins. u think the OT God is harsh??? not as half as harsh as what He has in store for us (the NT era) for those who reject His Son...
I think I'm done here. This one speaks for itself.
Heh.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else here. But to me ...
u look & sound srsly stoopid.
And if you just buy into all those biblical threats without thinking a critical thought or two, probably not a very brave person either.
The idea that you seem to think there are ANY conditions under which it might be acceptable to allow bears to tear 42 children apart ... damn.
.
.
.
.
(Okay, if the bears were seriously starving, I might agree to a child or two. But only those raised on a natural diet of, like, fruits and grains and stuff. And they'd have to eat the whole child, and not leave wasted bits like, you know, loose heads and things.)
wow more ignorance how
wow
more ignorance
how surprising
care to expand on your thoughts or is that too much to ask?
Expanding
Glad to.
But first, are you the same "Anonymous User" who made the top comment in this thread? Or a totally different Anonymous User? I don't want to get my Anonymous Users mixed up, and mistakenly answer the questions of one veiled interlocutor by referring to the initial comments of a wholly different shadowy unknown person.
Second, what exactly am I expanding on? I mean, seeing as how you (assuming it was you, and not some completely other nameless entity) did nothing but vaguely quote Bible verses, then make insupportable threats based on a dimwitted conviction that everybody who doesn't believe like you do will suffer some undisclosed but extreme punishment by your mythical superbeing.
Answer these questions, if you don't mind — and it wouldn't hurt to use, like, you know, correct spelling and stuff — and I'll be happy to provide prompt replies.
More proof that God is
More proof that God is balding, and very sensitive about it.
A slight modification to the
A slight modification to the story could date this to modern times...
1. City Kids routinely being preyed upon.
2. Prophet blames a couple of female bears
3. City wises up and suspicion turns to the alleged prophet of god
4. Prophet is mocked as he is run out of town
Somebody just recorded it in the wrong order.
This verse was a turning point for me
Back when I was a lad (9th grade or so) I tried to point this verse out to a Wesleyan friend. She of course tried to confirm in her Wholly Babble... But found that it wasn't there! Her 'Good News' Babble simply edited out the parts that they didn't like.
Well, I didn't have much of an argument for her. But the Babble's credibility for me as an authoritarian source vanished for me completely in that moment. That sort of text manipulation has been going on for at least 2000 years. It's a 'miracle'(tm) that the story can be recognized at all.
Bears
The worst part of this verse, for those of us who love ursids, is that it gives bears a bad name.
Plus, being forced to gnaw on snotty little Christian brats would give any self-respecting bear an attack of projectile vomiting.
...............
I'm thinking too that some of those kids were only there to watch, and probably didn't shout anything.
Oh, wait, shit. It never happened. Duh. You always tend to forget that when talking about Christianity. You fall into the trap of trying to explain things in THEIR terms ("Hey, how is it that God created light on the first day, but the sun and moon only on the fourth?"), and forget that those terms are not reasonable ones.
The FIRST argument should always be "That absolutely never happened."
Bears
Hello,
Subject matter like the bears can be difficult to deal with and it has always been difficult to deal with for many people down the generations. If I wanted to manipulate the words myself then I would remove them and remove the difficulty. But I don't want to do that and neither did any person before me. I'd rather they'd stay as they were originally.
The fact that they are still there speaks to me that these things actually happened.
Look at the means by which the Jewish scribes copied the Old Testament books. They were doing error checking way back then. Also compare the Dead Sea scroll text in Torah to other buried texts and present text. The Jews used to bury the Torah (the first 5 books of the OT) in some sort of ceremony.
Exodus dead sea scroll text is from dated to be 250BC. See what it says.
Regards
Scott
Error Checking ...?
Heh. Low bidders, poor quality control, incompetence, ass-covering, official lies, turf guarding, interdepartmental jealousy, the Peter Principle ... fortunately none of those things, or even things like those things, happened back then.
No, no. The translations were perfect, and we can be completely confident that everything in the Bible happened, and happened just as it says they did. Hey, it's in the BIBLE.
On the other hand ... what if a single reasoning mind can overthrow the whole Bible? What if the Argument from Authority actually IS a logical fallacy? And what if the bear story is simple bullshit, passed down by the same dimwits who still greet every sneeze with "Bless you!" hundreds of years after its origin?
Scott, the reason the bear story stayed in there -- complete with the weirdly explicit 42 children -- is because, early on, nobody dared question it, and later on, nobody thought to question it.
It's creepy to me that we went through thousands of years of contentious history in order to win this precious individual intellectual and physical freedom we have, and now that we have it, certain people are afraid to use it.
Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" is dated 1997 AD. See what it says.
Again, of course
You're absolutely right...but it's necessary to argue on their terms. If you don't they can't even begin to comprehend your argument.
Hmm.
Gotta disagree.
Every time you "argue on their terms," what you're really doing is telling them "Okay, let's both assume your God exists ..."
Why would you do that? You tie your hands behind your back from the start.
It would be like the gay movement of the 70s saying "Okay, we'll stipulate that homosexuality is bad. But we're still human and still deserve rights." Or the civil rights movement in Alabama saying "Sure, a lot of us steal things and rape white women. But not all of us."
If you're going to argue, don't give away the farm before you even start talking.
Again, I think every discussion should start with "That absolutely never happened," or "There are no such things as gods. It's a silly idea; there's no way you can believe in or explain them."
That way, you force them into proving THEIR point, rather than you having to prove yours. They're on the defensive from the start, rather than you.
...the New Testament tenant
...the New Testament tenant of "turn the other cheek"...
I think you mean 'tenet'. Maybe there's somebody in the New Testament who leases land in the city of Turntheothercheek (in Greece maybe? Cyprus? Sounds almost Egyptian to me) and preaches against vengeful gods; I dunno. But I'm guessing there isn't.
You're right
You're absolutely right. That word is one of my banes. I get only get it right about 50% of the time.
Rationale
As a Bald American Atheist (our motto: BAA! We're sort of sheepish about the whole thing), I've long thought about this one. From poking around over the years, I believe the Christian interpretation of this passage is that they weren't boys in the sense of children, but rather a gang of young hooligans who'd been harrying the prophet for some time and was basically chasing him out of town with the threat of violence.
The passages around it and some retranslating result in something that much more defensible than a bear randomly eating babies because they made fun of a bald guy. At the end of the day, though, this is still Old Testament God. You don't fuck with that guy. Huggy-lovey kissy-wissy turn the other cheek God doesn't come until the sequel.
Seriously, don't make fun of Old Testament God, he will mess you UP. That's pretty much the entire "nice" interpretation of this verse.
I've heard that explanation too
I've heard that rationalization too, and it almost sounds good, until you read sources like "Young's literal translation" and others. They unanimously translate it to "small boys" or "little youths" (imagine that said in Joe Pesci's voice from "My Cousin Vinny").
I'm not a Bible scholar, of course, but I've never seen a Biblical justification for that line of reasoning. There's no surrounding passages or "retranslating" that makes this defensible. Not that I can see.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Not only that
Not only that...I have to take the Bible at its word. According to Christians it's the word of God. If it can be translated poorly that's all on their God. That entity would be responsible for providing the human race with a valid reference book for "his" rules.
Bible Verses....
This is one I usually bring up to 'believers'; especially Fundies. It's pretty hard to square the Bible up with any sort of logic, when the same set of 'laws' demand that people who cook on the Sabbath, unruly teenagers, cheating spouses, all liars - should all be put to death along with gays.
(Found your blog through a friend. I'm happy to have found another haven for atheists).
Best,
-Will
Haven
I hope to see you here often! There is no doubt that you can speak your mind here.
So long . . .
Well, so long as you pledge allegiance to the Holy Triumvirate of Dawkins, Hitch, & PZ while roasting Christian babies, of course.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
of course
Well..clearly! I didn't think I had to spell it out!
Ugh! You guys...
Matt Nisbet would be SO upset to see such comments like that! Good thing you guys aren't scientists...