Our friend Revenant recently mentioned this story in response to Christian troll (ted) who has been bombarding the moderation queue with messages and prayers to tell us all how we need his god’s love. I had forgotten this Bible story that is as scary as any Halloween horror story. Here is first what the satirical site, Landover Baptist Church had written about it:
The Lord sending bears to maul young children to death is nothing new to True Christians who have memorized their Bible! Saved folks know that the Lord Jesus is liable to send ravenous bears to kill children at the drop of a hat, as was the case when He sent two bears to rip apart 42 children who were rude enough to mock a bald man. Glory!
And the passage from the Bible: From The Holy Bible, 2 Kings 2:23-24:
“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them”
The love of God is wonderfully horrifying, ain’t it?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Thanks for the hat tip, Stardust.
This has to be one of the most pointless little passages in the whole babble. Mocking someone is worthy of a horrific death? Couldn’t gawd have just given them acne or something?
Such a loving, compassionate, and just gawd he is.
And shouldn’t baldy (was it Elijah or Elisha?) have been struck down for taking the lord’s name in vain?
And shouldn’t baldy (was it Elijah or Elisha?) have been struck down for taking the lord’s name in vain?
But gawd hates kids more. Especially babies.
I read on a website and I may have a bumper sticker made with this …”Needless slaughter makes God feel better.”
I still think the goriest horror story of all time is the story of Job. Gord makes a bet with the devil and proceeds to torture the living snot out of poor ol’ Job, who did absolutely nothing at all to provoke the attack.
Scariest part? After the onslaught, Job still wants to worship Gord.
Oy vey!
I like the story of Lot and his daughters. I think it provides and excellent example of family values. Also, I have a good joke about it.
(In the style of a Yo’ Mama joke)
Yo Lot soooooooooo Horny, he had three more daughters.
I love hearing xians try to defend this. They fail every time though, since they skirt around the idea that their gawd sent two bears (no wonder Colbert hates them) to slaughter 42 people (they say they were at least teens, not children. Doesn’t really matter does it?)
AthiestUnderMask is right.
I confronted a self-appointed preacher on the subway a few months ago about all the brutality in the bible. I also made a point to mention that the bible seemed to have no problem with slavery either.
She claimed that those passages were only in the old testament. If the old testament wasn’t true, I asked, how do you know that the new testament is true? She stared at me like a dear caught in the headlights. Most of these deluded folks haven’t even read the very book that they seemed bent on jamming down everyone’s throats.
I love the whole “Well it’s the old testament” thing. It’s always fun to ask them if they believe Jesus is the Messiah and after they say yes, ask where the prophecies in the Bible are located.
Ahh, yes. “The Old Testament doesn’t count” gambit.
Of course, it only applies to atheist arguments. The OT apparently does count if the Xian wants to use it.
If I can’t use Psalms 58, they can’t use Psalms 23.
As for the “they were teens” (as if that makes it okay) argument:
“there came forth little children out of the city [emphasis mine]”
I love the “next breath” argument they use.
Xian: “Oh but the laws of the OT don’t count. Jesus did away with all of that.”
Me: “But what about the Ten Commandments? They’re in the OT, so I guess I don’t have to follow them.”
Xian: (In the next breath) “Oh but we HAVE to follow those.”
My head pretty much explodes at that point.
Favorite babble horror story - hmmm…King Saul forcing the Witch of Endor to call up the ghost of Samuel always bothered me, especially when the message he gets is pretty much, “You’re screwed, buddy, so, so screwed.”
But really, the entire Book of Revelation, hands down. Freaked - me - out. No shining New Jerusalem with streets of gold could make up for the horrible images of death, destruction, and the wanton end of a perfectly workable world. Just awful.
My personal favorite isn’t so much as a story as it is a command- and, no, while I can’t stand it, the one about “Thous Shalt Not Kill”, isn’t it.
I can’t remember off the top of my head whether it was Jeebus or the Apostle Pol(Pot)said it. I think it was the latter but, really, what the fuck does it matter who utters the bullshit, when it’s bullshit that’s uttered. Goes a little something like this;
“Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Fatwa, The Stunned, and the Wholly Speared…”
Just think. If it had been more along the lines of…
“Keep it to your damn self and, if the world is sufficiently shitty to you, you may end up with a country all to yourself*.”
*-Side effects may include: All your neighbors hating you, bombs disguised as random strangers, an oily, anal discharge, and the augmentation of one’s man boobs.
Storywise, I couldn’t sleep when it was storming and/or raining for several years as a child- and I’m a little uneasy around large bodies of water to this day, because of that damned flood story. Drown the freaking world, way to go, Dude!
Isn’t it true that one mating pair of a species isn’t enough to sire a viable population? Could the whole Adam and Eve thing be true? With the fundies as the inbred-in-perpetuity descendants of those two and the rest of us the result of Cain’s dalliances with all and sundry angels, demons, Nephilim, goats, toaster ovens, and knotholes? Just wondering…
Eve, I was once told that revelations was a story of hope. I then replied “Hope for who?”
^ Exactly, AUM! That sounds like the same type of people who also used to tell me that most human beings were going to hell and that very few would be saved. So how could Revelation possibly be a good thing? It’s significant that those who claim to be looking forward to the Crapture don’t seem to care that their Maude has set things up to keep the vast majority of their fellow people in unspeakable torment forever.
Plus, even though I was an extremely “devout” child by any standards (evangelical protestant, can you imagine?!), I could never muster up the sheer arrogance and complaisance of those who assumed they were on a fast track to heaven and simply didn’t worry about those they thought were not. I fretted over leaving my family and friends behind if I were “taken up” and conversely, if my fretting were actually a sin, that I would be left behind while my loved ones were taken up!
Absolutely horrible. Letting go of the idea that there was only one way to be “saved” was my first step out of that mindset, and giving up my theism has been incredibly liberating. Those nightmares about the Crapture have long been laid to rest.
Now I’ve just got these Maude-gammed end-of-the-worlders (of all religions) bent on causing the Apocalypse themselves to worry about…
Putting all moral teachings aside…
How on earth can two bears slaughter 42 kids? Were they wayting in line for their execution? The city wasn’t even that far away, according to the text. Must have been some “magic” bears, I guess.
My favorite’s gotta be Noah’s Ark.
God admits that he made a mistake. So how does he try to make it right? By flooding the earth and killing the vast majority of the population… which he created in the first place! Of course some of the living beings he drowned must have included children, fetuses, kittens, puppies, baby birds, baby bunnies, lambs, etc.
It makes me sick when people try to search for evidence to prove this story. Why the hell would you even want it to be true?!?!
My favorite Biblical horror story has to be Judges 19:22-30.
Basically, an angry mob of perverts want to rape this Levite guy who’s staying at another dude’s house. The host instead offers his daughter and his guest’s concubine to the mob. The mob says no to the daughter, but yes to the concubine, and they proceed to “abuse her all night.” She then dies right on their doorstep, so the Levite takes her home, chops her into twelve pieces, and mails one to each of the twelve tribes of Isreal.
Here’s the kicker: The whole story ends with “consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.” Any takers?
Great post Stardust.
If I may add one that no one has mentioned that plagued me throughout my adolescence–the story of Onan. (I will pause now for a moment while I await everyones laughter to finish.) I dare you to find any adolescent boy raised in a fundamentalist or Catholic home who wasn’t/isn’t simulataneously frighted and endlessly frustrated by this little Hebrew Testament gem. I was very…tightly wound as a teenager and asked for forgiveness nightly. I hate to think how much worse it would have been for me had the internet existed when I was a teenager.
If the Catholic church knew what they were doing, they would grant poor Onan sainthood, but this, alas, will never come to pass.
RAmen to everyone’s favorite “ghost story,” especially Eve’s–I can relate to that one. It hurt sooo much the first time my father informed me that when I was Craptured up to Heaving, I would no longer care about my loved ones who were “left behind.” I know my parents weren’t intentionally psychologically abusing me, and I bear them no grudges (”bear” pun only intended after a proof-reading), but wow, the fear the Crapture caused me.
Happy Halloween everyone!
I’m reminded of that old comedians line: “I’ve got a million of ‘em”. There are so many ridiculous examples of injustice in the Babble; starting of course with the insane, pathological, Garden of Eden bullshit.
Skipping that old “Bad Gawd” canard…
Two stories in the New Testament “jump out at me” (Booh?). One relates to a recent comment by that Creationist, fascist, Brownshirt turd (I think I read it on his Site) that there’s nothing in the Babble about “Flat Earth”.
BULLSHIT!
For one…the story of Jeebus being taken up high enough by Satan to view the whole world (four corners and all?) is the reference I’m aiming at. Yeah…no matter how high you go…you can’t see the whole surface at once. I know…they’ll claim the dynamic duo waited for the rotation of the Earth…ala “As the World Turns”? Wouldn’t Jeebus (in his mortal form), at least, be gasping for air up there? Oh, of course…ala Chris Angel, perhaps…they’d both plunk their MAGIC twangers and produce oxygen.
Yada, yada!
What’s that?…I should look up the Chapter & Verse on all this crap?…
NOT! Or…WHAT?…on Halloween?
The other NT story, is that old favorite of mine where Jeebus curses the poor lonely, figless and isolated…”captive audience”…FIG TREE in the Garden of Gathesemene(?). It was out of season, for Christ’s sake; and what choice does a fig tree have. Oh wait…maybe it was a reincarnation of some particularly nasty, unreformed and extremely selfish…fig merchant.
[Eastern…anathema…Karmic reference, anyone?]
And to be cursed for helplessly frustrating the almighty Jeebus’s fickle taste buds? What about that aforementioned…Magic twanger of his? What a pathetic, mean-spirited asshole!
When I brought this up at another time on GifS; a fundie troll immediately morphed from literalism into a metaphorical mode; like the theologians always do when caught in a bind!
HOW CONVE-E-E-E-E-NIANT!
As has been pointed out innumerable times; the babble thumpers are blinded by their brainwashing, and can’t see, or even FATHOM the illogic of all the totally man made-up mythological bullshit. The NT is rife with a number of contradictory accounts of the same, supposed, events.
Again, it’s the old futile…”banging one’s head against the wall”…waste of time, arguing with hardcore scriptural believers.
If given a chance…I try pointing them to a Site like Skeptic’s Annotated Bible/Koran/Book of Morons.
Eve, I’ve always wanted to ask those people who think that the rapture is coming any day now and that they’ll be going on the big elevator why they don’t just quit their jobs, give away everything they own, and just pretty much wait out the rest of this existence.
I want to ask them why they even bothered to have children since there was a chance they would be left, and since they’re supposed to be so loving, why would they even want to risk their children going through all the crap that they believe will happen.
I want to ask them why they spent so much time getting an “education” (and I use the term loosely) if it’s just going to be wasted.
In short, I’d love to know why they continue to actually live like the rapture is not going to happen to THEM in their lifetime.
Seriously, wouldn’t the world be better if they all just went into the desert to wait for it all and left the rest of us alone?
Oh, and Eve, I was so devout that I wanted to be the one who “killed” the Anti-Christ.
Of course after I realized it was all bunk, I read the Left Behind series (my dad’s mom gave the books to me, and I thought it would be rude to accept them and never read them. See, I can be nice!) and got a good laugh out of it.
I always got a charge out of King David and the Ark of the Covenant.
Here’s ol’ Dave, “Man After God’s Heart”. Traitor, bandit, ingrate, wife stealer, murderer. Father of a dysfunctional family. On his very death bed, with his last breaths, giving his successor a hit list. Wonderful guy.
The Ark! (Cue theme from Indiana Jones!)
When I was a young’un I saw the building (in Ethiopia) where the original is said to be kept. Why didn’t they trot it out? Why didn’t they actually do something with it? Wouldn’t it be proof, etc.
Nope it’s “holy”, and it’s use is as a symbol, something to be pondered, reflected on, held as MYSTERY, something to knowingly nod to the other “in crowd” about.
But, The Ark…
Kind of expensive to make, and certainly a SYMBOL. Guy tries to do right when he’s shipping it somewhere, touches it, and the alleged diety does him in. The Philistines steal it, certainly an offence to the owning diety, and he gives them hemmoroids. This could have been bad for the Isrealites, even I have heard of ‘roid rage. This could surely stimulate the Philistines to some aggression! I know about ‘roids first hand, but ‘roid rage is a little much. Yeah, you can get less than patient, even a little testy because of them…but I am informed that the rage is from STEroids, not the HEM variety.
Anyway, it seems rather silly. One guy (trying to do right) is killed, the “baddies” get sore butts. Maybe this was the proto parochial school experience?
AUM, your devout childhood beat mine! I just cowered in extreme anxiety during every thunderstorm and earthquake for several years.
Ooh, good one, Sarge; I’d forgotten about the Ark of the Covenant. That Ethiopian church won’t even let scientists see what they’ve got because it’s holy; I say some enterprising Indiana-Jones-wanna-be should sneak in and take photographs!
There was a Digging For the Truth show about that. They’ll friggin shoot you if you try to get in without permission. How’s that for the grace of gawd. And we can see how gawd graces Ethiopians with so much food.
When I was there they took us on some ‘cultural’ experience things.
I may have mentioned this before, but the adults where we lived had their version of Sunday school and hymns. A favorite was “Gimme that Old Time Religion” that was good for Paul and Silas. There was an adult who was a dissenter and gentle mocker (my and other parents scornfully pronounced that he just “wanted attention”, or “Wanted to shock people”)and we all (him included) went to a Coptic service.
We came back and the parents were also dismissive of the Copts. He said why, it was what they sang that they wanted, “that old time religion” and was about as close to Paul and Silas as you could get. The churchly made the responses that they always make when they’re caught being inconsistant.
On two seperate occasions us boys were taken out and left for two weeks with “indigenous” people. No interpreter (they were run off by the people we’d been taken to) and food that you better LEARN to like. Once in the Afar mountains and once in the Danakil. I can pick out a set of scars that are still on my hands from helping make a thorn enclosure for the nights. The one place some of my fellows were a bit slothful and gingerish gathering these thorn thingees, so they showed us a man who had most of his face bitten off by a hyena which had been able to sneak through the enclosure, once. He had also not been close enough to the fires which were kept going all night. They also, without benefit of English, indicated that hyenas would go for the groin, we’d seen what they could do to a face, so…when teenage boys are confronted with that consequense, what’s a hand getting stuck with thorns? Thus ended the lesson…selah.
The Jonah and the Whale thing is also kind of disgusting. This diety, to get to Jonah, will sink a ship and drown people who have nothing to do with the problem but are there at the time.
^ They also, without benefit of English, indicated that hyenas would go for the groin, we’d seen what they could do to a face, so…
God hates teenage boys!
Eve, me darlin’, I’ve BEEN a teenage boy, raised sons, and deal with teens a lot.
If there’s a deity floating about the manor somewhere, the evidence seems to strongly favor your contention. Be a man! Siddown, yer just a kid. Act your age! You’re too young…
Old enough to know better, too young to try…but, damn! I wanna do that…
Oh, well. Do girls fare better? My wife, in her younger days, was quite well endowed, and, um, “bloomed” early. She reports that her mother (born 1901, so with that morality ingrained)would tell her, “Stand up straight!” Then in about five minutes (if my wife had been rash enough to be hanging around) it would be, “Stop sticking yourself out!”
This would repeat itself at frequent intervals. The hyenas, lions, and leopards only wanted to eat you.
I guess that the really worst thing that I’ve come up with biblically is the admonition to not complain about the deity. The one about the pot rebuking the potter as an intollerable unseemliness. Can’t remember the actual reference.
So, no matter what happens, don’t get uppity, suck it up, you DESERVE it…and if you don’t, tough. Reminds me of a “please, sir, may I have another?” kind of thing, or “I’LL give you something to complain about if you think THAT was bad…!”
My favorite babble horror story came to me via forced scripture study in college. My judeo-xian scriptures class teacher was a nun. She proudly proclaimed that the babble contained absolutely no verses that were detrimental to women.
Then she sent us home with an assignment to read excerpts from Judges. As I came upon verses 19:22-30, my head shot up with a profound revelation:
The fuckin’ nun lied!
Sarge, god definitely hates teenage girls, too! And women. And men. And even little kids–well. Certainly a concept not worth believing in.
I was lucky enough that a persistent feminist streak ran through my family on both sides, despite religion. My parents taught me that I was fully equal to any male and entitled to try anything I wanted to do. Your wife’s story is funny to me for different reasons: my mom was far more stylish, fashionable, and sociable than I was, and was constantly trying to get me to dress more attractively and go to more parties. She always told me to stand up straight, too - but never told me to stop sticking myself out. I have excellent posture and a great walk as a result!
I still remember her getting angry at me because miniskirts were back in style and I hadn’t put my hems up - *sighs nostalgically* - good times, good times…
cry4, how much you want to bet she’d forgotten about that passage? In my experience anyway, very few catholics knew that much about the babble, let alone had read it…
My favourite horror story is a classic: the plagues of Egypt. God makes the Pharaoh forbid the Jews from leaving so that God can punish the pharaoh by torturing the Egyptians. Every time he does it, the Pharaoh is persuaded, but God makes him change his mind so that God will be able to torture the Egyptians again. Why all this? Because God is a narcistic jerk that wants all the people on Earth to know of his powers and talk about the wonders he does.
Sorry I’m late to this party and basically off the blog grid for the time-being, except for my Bible blog, where I’ve just hit what may be the most disturbing chapter yet: Leviticus 10.
Let’s say you’re the most moral creature in the known and unknown universe, and two kids are burning some incense. What would you do? If you’re Yahweh, you shoot massive flames that devour the kids and you forbid their father and surviving brothers to grieve, or even to leave the tabernacle. It’s the right thing to do!
Hmm, the link didn’t work. Let’s try it again:
http://bs4a.blogspot.com/2007/11/leviticus-10.html
Eve: Erm…RE your…
“She always told me to stand up straight, too - but never told me to stop sticking myself out. I have excellent posture and a great walk as a result!”
and…
“I still remember her getting angry at me because miniskirts were back in style and I hadn’t put my hems up - *sighs nostalgically* - good times, good times…”
You wouldn’t have any pictures, now, would you, of you…’brandishing’ your miniskirts…as you undoubtedly unknowingly(?)…”titillatingly intimated” ala:
“sticking myself out” and, of course, doing your…erm…”great walk”?
[resists drooling at the thought! Yeah, I know…Bad (addicted, dirty old man) ChuckA?]
Waaay OT, of course…
That does remind me of the late 1960s, when I was marginally considering being a high school classroom teacher…or more accurately, and likely…band director. Just the thought of looking at a class filled with all those teenage, mini skirted girls…contemplating higher grades, no doubt(?)…contributed to enough embarrassing (red faced) fear (and resultant guilt?) to change my mind about school teaching. I seem to remember joking with some of my male teacher and band director friends about the whole contemporaneous, intriguing scenario. I’m sure you can imagine the comments!
Yes indeed, Eve…”good times, good times…”!
Or, perhaps, more appropriate to a horny, ‘hetero’, male…
“I can dream, can’t I?”
What!…Overwhelming nostalgia…and (longtime, completely unresisted) sexual addiction dictates?…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniskirt
Except that wasn’t Jesus. 2 Kings is the old testament. The Lord referred to, the one who sent the bears, was not Jesus. It was the god of the old testament.
Except that wasn’t Jesus. 2 Kings is the old testament. The Lord referred to, the one who sent the bears, was not Jesus. It was the god of the old testament.
But tom…Jeebus and god are one in the same…along with their friend Mr Holy Spirit. The god of the old testament, and the god of the new testament are one and the same…along with jeebus being god on earth…and the holy spirit with them.
I probably do have pics of me in my salad days, ChuckA - somewhere around (haven’t seen them lately)…
I don’t wear skirts shorter than knee-length anymore (mostly because I just feel kind of silly in teeny-bopper fashions at my post-35 age).
The ’60s must have been a great time for guys: legs, legs everywhere and sometimes a glimpse of something more!
Star, maybe Tom is one of the faithful who don’t believe in the Trinity - but surely he believes the god of the nt is the same god as the one in the ot - which means the same god who committed the bear atrocity still also sent jesus - ah, fork it…