Each day offers an opportunity for atheist activists to challenge God. No time is more sacred than one week of the year. Holy Week is the recipient of this honor via an NY Times guest editorial. Rahm Emanuel said it best: Never let any good religious holiday, or several, go unnoticed.
The op-ed, titled “In This Time of War, I Propose We Give Up God,” was of course published on Good Friday. And who wouldn’t exploit a brutal war, about which a case is being made to bring war crimes charges against Vladimir Putin and his Red Army, to go after God? Despicable. The Times article, I mean.
After turning his back on Orthodox Judaism, writer Shalom Auslander became a successful author, which is evident in his essay, beginning with cleverly using Passover — and the Russia-Ukraine War — to claim God is responsible for “war and violence” and “oppression and suffering,” and to suggest people stop teaching children about God.
This weekend, Jews around the world will celebrate the holiday of Passover, the name of which comes from the story of God “passing over” the homes of our distant ancestors on his way to slaughter the first born sons of evil Egyptians.
Our forefathers, the story goes, marked their doorposts with lamb’s blood in order to spare their own sons the awful fate of their enemies.
This time of conflict and violence, suffering and oppression is a good place to look for something better.
God.
It’s not to sound too Mr. Obvious, but aren’t times of trouble, war and violence included, when people of faith turn to God for solace? Auslander then gets more aggressive — and graphic:
God seems to paint with a large brush. He also uses a rolling pin. Our rabbi said that he killed the first born cattle in Egypt. He even killed cows. If he had been mortal, the Gods of Jews, Christians, and Muslims would be brought to The Hague. Yet, we are proud of him. We emulate him. Our children should be just like him.
It might be a time when missiles are falling and mass graves contain the bodies of those who have died, to quit imitating such a hateful God. Maybe we should stop glorifying his cruelty. Perhaps now is a good time to teach our children to pass over God — to be as unlike him as possible.
[…]
‘Why did God kill the first-born cattle?’ my rabbi said. ‘Because the Egyptians believed they were gods.’
We, humans made after his likeness, can do the same. Fixed-wing bombers as well as cluster bombers. Self-propelled mortars or thermobaric rocket launchers.
The idea of killing gods is something I’m all for.
Perfectly “logical,” isn’t it? There are no bones to be broken.
This article is not meant to be a debate on theology or about God’s existence. That will be left to the more theologically competent, as well as atheists, who must not only preach their belief to others, but also to nonbelievers.
Proselytizing is a great way to go.
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