It was a time when I was still a believer, but I was already questoning some things that didn's seem quite right.
One day I asked my christian friends about a hypotethical scenario:
"Let's say that a nation of Muslims invaded us, killed us all, along with women and children, and spared only virgins to make them their slaves. They would claim that Allah gave our land to them and they had the divine right to do what they did."
I asked my friends "If they really believed they had permission from Allah, would it make it okay?"
"Of course it wouldn't be okay, "They all said. "That would be a horrible act and nothing ever would make it okay!"
"Okay, so now take a similar sutuation from the Book of Joshua: God brought the Israelites to the promised land, but that land was already inhabited by many nations. God commanded his people to perform genocide, kill all men women and children and keep only the virgins for themselves. And then take over all their possessions and land.
So, according tho the bible, the Israelites believed they have permission from God to kill people and steal all their stuff. Was that okay?"
I was struggling with this question myself and I had a real problem to make a clear judgment. That's why I wanted to hear what my friends will say.
And I was shocked how quickly they started defending the Israelites and finding reasons upon reasons to justify their actions. They had no problem with killing women, children, unborn babies and enslaving little girls as sex slaves.
"If God told them to do it, they must have deserved it! Thay had to be a horrible nation! Good riddance!"
"But what about the children and the babies? And the unborn ones?" Were they also horrible people?
"They would surely become horrible people, if God had allowed them to grow up! It was just a matter of time!"
And then they started to look up scriptures for passages that would confirm that victims of that genocide had it coming. They had no second thoughts, no doubts. They all believed that this genocide really happened, and they had no sympathy for the victims. Just because it was their God who did it.
But I wanted to be sure and one day I asked a Christian mother, a wife of a pastor, what would she do if she was standing in Abraham's place.
"Imagine if you were there instead of Abraham, and God would ask you to kill your child and burn it's corpse. Would you do what Abraham did? Would you kill your baby or allowed somebody else do it, just because God told you so?"
And I could say she was thinking about it, but she wasn't able to say that she would not kill her child.
This situation made me pretty sure it was time to say goodbye to Jesus and faith and church and shit.
Christains. Those who claim moral superiority over rest of the world. Boasting of their divine revelation about what is objectively and absolutely good and bad.
And yet, they are not able to condemn holy wars, genocide, infanticide or even slavery.
My own wife, admitted that she supports what the Israelites did. I wanted to also ask her about what Abraham did, and if she would do the same. If we had a child, and God asked her to kill it. What would she do?
I never asked her that question though. I'm too afraid she might actually answer. And I don't think I'm rady to face what would have to happen afterwards.
Right now I'm just happy that we don't have any chidren. I'm so fucking relieved.