2 of 3: The Bizarre Hilarious Disturbing Marvelous Things I Learned When I Read the Bible

A review of David Plotz's "Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible" - http://www.amazon.com/Good-Book-Hilarious-Disturbing-Marvelous/dp/0061374245/...

Review by Todd Allen Gates, author of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer."

My four YouTube channels:

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddGates - my musician channel

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates - where I discuss the ideas in "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer"

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates2 - where I discuss the ideas in my book "Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames" (such as "Why do we have to work?" and "Why do we have to use money?" and "How should we define 'success'?")

- http://youtube.com/user/BlasphemyPiano - where I play the background piano accompaniment for songs in Nick Gisburne's book of lyrics "Blasphemy! Anthems for Atheists."

For customer reviews of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer": http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Christian-Proselytizer-Allen-Gates/dp/16014508...

Link to eBook: http://booklocker.com/books/2739.html

Link to free PDF excerpt: http://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/2739s.pdf

For customer reviews of "Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames": http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Gathering-Videogames-Allen-Gates/dp/1601450443/...

Link to eBook: http://booklocker.com/books/2672.html

Link to free PDF excerpt: http://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/2672s.pdf

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[TOSViolator]

I'm not saying these things are not written in the Bible. I'm only saying some things are interpreted a bit awry.

[ToddAllenGates]

@TOSViolator

> I'm only saying some things are interpreted a bit awry.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21 says if a man accuses his wife of not being a virgin on their wedding night--and her parents can't produce the evidence of blood on their bedsheets--the men of the city should stone the girl to death.

In what way am I misinterpreting this?

[ExonicPlain]

Nice videos. Very well-spoken. Earned yourself a new subscriber.

[ToddAllenGates]

> Nice videos. Very well-spoken. Earned yourself a new subscriber.

Thanks--glad to have you aboard!

[TLSlayer]

the brainwashing inflicted on the people must be extremely potent if they worship such a vicious freak of supernature and THEN say he is love and NOT fear!

honestly,i would say that all christian zealots themselves should be slaughtered for their worship but i know its not entirely their fault.

also,to stone the faithless would only make sense IF god was in fact known to be real.because then they would be an extreme threat.

[ToddAllenGates]

> the brainwashing inflicted on the people must be extremely potent if they worship such a vicious freak of supernature and THEN say he is love and NOT fear!

Or maybe their insistence on saying that "God Is Love!" is just said out of fear! Kind of like the way people under the cruel regimes of Mao, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein all had to pretend that they loved their leaders . . . the difference being of course, that those leaders actually existed.

[templarart]

Really good. I've quoted that passage out of Deuteronomy where you're supposed to kill family members over heresy countless times. It's obvious that the mental virus protects itself by killing all competition to its host. I think the next, natural evolution in your videos would be the mindset of a Christian as they read these passages - I remember being horrified, trying to understand them, compartmentalizing them and then just assuming "God knows best". Real cognitive dissonance.

[8WholeThing]

About the hanging/impaling discrepancy, I asked a part-time preacher at work about the death of Judas in Matthew vs, Acts. He said that a book he read said "to hang" meant "to fall on a sword" as a suicide which caused his guts to fall out,. Perhaps the book was correct that hanging was impaling, a la Vlad the Impaler.

(After checking, I pointed out to my friend that Young's Literal Translation said that Judas "strangled" himself, so it was translated as "hung" in other versions.)

[MumblingMickey]

It certainly kicking... ouch

[ToddAllenGates]

> You do as good a job as any I've seen.

TOO kind but thanks!

[carloz1]

You are right. There are so many holes that the horse shouldn't be alive but it is. Thanks for kicking it. You do as good a job as any I've seen.

[ToddAllenGates]

> Our superstitious tendencies mixed with our hopes and fears, sprinkled with intellectual dishonesty is as scary as the God of the Old Testament.

Well said!

And I actually think our reaction (superstitions + hopes + fears + dishonesty) is even scarier, because it exists in the real world!