Sex, Lies, and Football

Like everyone else in this country, unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve been bombarded with every detail of the Penn State sex scandal story.   Nearly everyone is horrified, and thinks that the firing of Joe Paterno was justified.  Others think they should’ve let him retire at the end of the season.  All agree that what Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to young, innocent boys, was appalling.  It’s hard to imagine something so evil being done by someone with a position of authority.  Or is it?

Throughout the day, I kept thinking, “How can so many people be outraged by a story about pre-pubescent boys being sexually assaulted by a man 5 times their age, while on the other hand, accept without questioning the story about God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to Him (God)?” [Genesis 22]

As a society, we are intolerant of rapists because of how absolutely abhorrent it is.  Only doing it to a defenseless child can make it worse.  All throughout the Old Testament, God not only gives permission, but direct orders for the Army’s of Israel to kill whole cities, but save the virgins for themselves (to be raped), but those are to many to list here.

In Genesis 19, God says that he couldn’t find one person that was good in Soddom & Gomorrah, other than Lot and his family,  so he’s going to destroy the city and kill everyone in it: Genocide. [noun  "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."]  So, God sends to angels to meet with Lot.  The men of the city see the two men enter, and surround the place and, as it is widely believed, wanted to have sex with them.  But Lot being the “only” good man in the city, offers up his two virgin daughters to be raped to save the two angels.  God doesn’t mind rape, as long as his two spirit beings are kept safe.

In Deut. 22:28-29,  God says that if an unmarried girl is raped, the rapist has to pay the girl’s father fifty pieces of silver and marry her, without the option to divorce.  Also, the girl has no say in the matter.  If that girl was married and was raped, but no one heard her yell for help,  God says to stone them both to death [Deut. 22:23-24].  That’s fair.

In II Samuel 12, God tells King David that, as punishment for having Bathsheba’s husband murdered, he was going to take all of his wives and let his neighbor “lie” with them, and kill his son that Bathsheba had given birth to.  Because God loves Children.

In the book of Job, the all knowing, all powerful God, bet The Devil that Job wouldn’t curse Him.  God allowed Satan to kill all of his children.

“But”, you say,  “Jesus did away with all of that stuff.  We’re under a new covenant.”  Matt 15:4, “For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”  Jesus told us how much he values families in Luke 14:26.  A person cannot care about their family if they want to go to heaven.  “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.“  That just seems a bit selfish, doesn’t it.  “I want to go to heaven, and I’m willing to discard everyone that matters here on earth to get there.”

This brings me back to my original question: Why do we as human beings, hate murder and rape in modern society, yet accept an ancient book filled with murder, rape, and slavery, as the inerrant word of God?  If  God does not make mistakes, and the bible is inerrant, is god a sadist?  If the God of the bible is no better than this, why serve Him?  Do we really want to claim that we receive all morality from this God?