williamlobdell.com

My friend, ex-evangelical Christian Daniel Florien, has a Father’s Day provocative post on his site, unreasonablefaith.com. It’s titled “The Worst Father Ever Imagined.” Some excerpts:

I had a pretty terrible father growing up. He was a violent drunk who treated my mom badly and made me feel miserable.

I hated him.

Some people have worse fathers. But none of them can hold a candle the “Heavenly Father” in the Bible.

That is the father who put his children in a garden, and set them up to fail. Then, he punished them for falling into his trap, cursing them with death and hard work. After a time they turned away from their cruel father, so he drowned them all — except for one family. Then, in his great kindness, he promised to never do such a thing again. What a guy.

[snip]

Eventually God decided to create a “chosen people,” and when they didn’t live up to his expectations, he let them be enslaved by the Egyptians. After a long period of pain and suffering, he decided to listen to the cries of his people. He chose a leader, Moses, to get them out of slavery. Moses succeeded, but the people rebelled, so God made them wander around in a desert for 40 years, until everyone of that generation died, including Moses (because Moses struck a rock with a rod instead of just speaking to it).

He told his people to capture the towns of other nations, to kill them all and their animals, but keep the virgins for themselves to rape. He would command them to make slaves of other nations. He even let them sell their own daughters into sexual slavery.

He made an entire book full of laws of things they were not allowed to do. They couldn’t touch menstruating women, they couldn’t eat shrimp or pigs, they couldn’t mix fibers for garments, they couldn’t kill their slaves — only beat them until they’re almost dead, and thousands of other things. It was an impossible list to follow, and he knew it. He was just making a point that they were worthless scum and couldn’t match his wonderfulness.