We’ve been reading this book for a week or two, now, but since I’ve been missing my friends, I’ve been taking notes on Bob’s book, “Away With All Gods”. I love it!

In Part One, entitled, “Where did God come from…and who says we need God?”, the various sections include: “A Cruel and Truly Monstrous God”; “The Bible, Taken Literally, Is a Horror”; “Christian Fundamentalists, Christian Fascists”; “What About the Ten Commandments?”; “No New Testament Without the Old”; Fundamentalist and ‘Salad Bar’ Christianity”; “Religion and Oppressive Ruling Classes”, and “If Gods Do Exist, Why Do People Believe in Them?” among others.

In section one, he talks about the “God works in mysterious ways” thinking that people use to justify the facts that people are horrendously killed, treated maliciously and tortured before they are killed, work hard and do good deeds all their lives, but crap still happens to them. Women are brutally raped, and children in third world countries starve to death in great numbers DAILY. And he pretty much says, “c’mon now, the kind of ‘god’ who would allow this is cruel and truly monstrous”. If there is a ‘god’.

I have to agree!

And then there’s the bible, where he describes ‘god’ as being “capricious, volatile, and seemingly even schizophrenic in his cruelty”. He goes on to quote passages from Second Samuel and Chronicles, which blame the plagues that befell the people of Israel, alternately on ‘god’ and ’satan’.

Avakian goes on to quote other scholars who have studied the bible, such as A. Brooks in “God, the Original Fascist”, who says, “Apparently, God has some sort of fetish for plagues”, wherein, he quotes Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Exodus and Genesis.

Avakian gets a little redundant, but continues making complete sense, when discussing the facts that slavery, infanticide, and inhumane treatment of women are encouraged in the bible.

More to come…..

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