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During these two years (i.e. October 1836 to January 1839) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished, – is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, would he permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, & c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament. This appeared to me utterly incredible …
I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.
But I was very unwilling to give up my belief. Charles Darwin, Autobiography: Religious Belief
When nonbelievers look carefully at stories in the Old Testament about God’s relationship with his ‘children’, it can be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the relationship looks an awful lot like those which characterize abusive families.
The behavior, attitude, and demands of God in the Old Testament are very similar to the behavior, attitude, and demands made by abusive fathers and husbands. Austin Kline, board post 26th September 2007, ‘God as an Abusive Father’
In the Old Testament we have several texts which speak about a divine council. Professor Dr Herbert Niehr, University of Tugingen
Stein: So the Hebrew God, the God of the Old Testament, he doesn’t exist in your view?
Dawkins: Certainly, that would be a very unpleasant prospect. cited Professor Richard Dawkins, American Atheists Conference 2009
What in the twenty-first century are we doing venerating a book that contains such stuff? Professor Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil: The Virus of Faith, Channel 4 2006
It seems to me an odd proposition that we should adhere to some parts of the Bible story but not to others. After all, when it comes to important moral questions by what standards do we cherry-pick the Bible? Why bother with the Bible at all if we have the ability to pick and choose from it what is right and what is wrong for today’s society? ibid.
But dwarfed by the mighty temples and giant statues of Babylonian Gods, the Israelites must also confront the fundamental question – Why did their god – Yahweh – forsake them? ibid.
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, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p31
The well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well. ibid. pp237-238
Again, Lot was too drunk to notice, and he impregnated her too (Genesis 19:31-6). If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone. ibid. p240
The tragi-farce of God's maniacal jealousy against alternative gods recurs continually throughout the Old Testament. ibid. p246
The ethnic cleansing begun in the time of Moses is brought to bloody fruition in the Book of Joshua, a text remarkable for the bloodthirsty massacres it records and the xenophobic relish with which it does so. ibid. p247
Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is written in it? ibid. p248
What shocks me today about such stories is not that they really happened – they probably didn’t. What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such an appalling role model as Yahweh. And even worse, that they should bossily try to force the same evil monster, whether fact or fiction, on the rest of us. ibid. p248
God was only joking after all. Tempting Abraham and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. Richard Dawkins, lecture The God Delusion, Lynchburg Virginia
Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to ‘God’ to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare to dishonor my Creator’s name by [attaching] it to this filthy book. Men and books lie. Only nature does not lie. Thomas Paine
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder. For the belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. And the Bible is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind. Thomas Paine
There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice. Thomas Paine
These books are spurious, and that Moses is not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written in the times of Moses, not till several hundred years afterwards. Thomas Paine
Such a woman was Deborah in the Book of Judges. She was a Judge, meaning not just one well versed in the law but a leader and one who is wise. Deborah is certainly a woman who commanded some respect. In the Bible she is identified as the fiery woman. She’s credited with turning around the fortunes of Israel by leading an army to take the land of Canaan. Bettany Hughes, The Bible, Channel 4 2010
I personally think maybe intervention into our evolution ... The jump in evolution, or the jump in the creation, just cries out that someone intervened in our evolution ... When you read the Old Testament that God said, Let us make man in our image. Immediately you have a problem as most Bible students know with who is us and our? Later on it says that Man has become as one of us. Talking with a Rabbi many years ago, he made the point that ... it was not saying that God was creating Man at that point, it was actually saying, Come, let us make Man in our image, according to our likeness, implying that Man was already here. Jordan Maxwell, recorded interview
The whole concept of the Old Testament was developed right around the 9th 10th and 11th to 12th century A.D. So that the Old Testament was not an ancient record of an ancient people – there was no ancient Israel. Jordan Maxwell, Project Camelot Conference September 2009
What’s not being said first of all is that God is creating a new creature called man. No. What is being said is that God, again being Elohim in the plural, the gods are saying, Come let us make man in our image after our likeness. What’s being said is that someone has come here. Jordan Maxwell, Forbidden Knowledge
Where was the creature Adam or man formed? ... The Bible doesn’t say God created man in the Garden of Eden. It says Genesis 2:8: And the Lord God planted a Garden eastward of Eden and there he put the man he had formed. ibid.
So God created the Earth and then it became a waste and a desolation. It wasn’t created that way. ibid.
In Jeremiah 4:23 we are told that Jeremiah is given a vision by God of the world that was before man was created. ibid.