Genesis

Genesis is really great until Jacob and Esau come along. Then it's all about land and donkeys and wives and shit. Snooooore.

BUT, after all the flooding I started to skim. Apparently I missed some pretty sweet stuff:

The founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel lie, breach a contract, encourage pagans to convert to Judaism only in order to incapacitate them for slaughter, murder some innocents and enslave others, pillage and profiteer, and then justify it all with an appeal to their sister's defiled honor.

Sounds good! If only there were less donkeys (e.g. "Issachar is a strong donkey..." (Gen. 49:8)).

Stepping back in Genesis for a moment, I would like to call attention to Genesis, chapter 6. I have never been convinced on a common sense level by the Calvinist double standard which affords God constant moral superiority and impunity.

In Genesis 6:5-7, Wotan laments:

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Never have I read or heard the possibility voiced that God is, frankly, endevouring on a course of genocide, of mass murder. What's more, Almighty God is filled with regret. If we are but pieces of Clay unfit to question the sculptor, why is it that God feels regret? His sorrow only confirms our similarity in image. If God and Man are so similar in this respect, why should there be such an enormous gulf between the ethical standards of human beings and the the Almighty?