The Canaanites DESERVED their fate: This rationalization assumes that the Canaanites were somehow evil, vicious monsters that deserved nothing more merciful than death and enslavement. Of course this is ridiculous as the Canaanites were not really all that different from the cultures around them, just weaker. When the stronger culture crushes the weaker culture, kills the children and takes their virgins to be used by the soldiers - are we really to believe the testimony of this immoral culture?

Child Sacrifice:
Oh GOD, if I had a dime for every Christian who brought up Child Sacrifice.... Let's take this one at a time!

• 1) Israel ALSO engaged in child sacrifice. Ignore all the screaming rationalizations - there are clear passages in the Old Testament demanding that the first born be given over to Jehovah. This ALWAYS means sacrifice. It was later on in Israeli history that certain priests began revolting against human sacrifice. If Jehovah accepted child sacrifices (and he has) than he would have no moral problem with other cultures engaging in this horrible activity! Jehovah does not declare that these cultures must be destroyed because of child sacrifice; towns and cultures are massacred simply because the Israelis wanted theiir land or because the town defied the Israeli theocracy.

• 2) What does Child Sacrifice tell us? Anthropologically only desperate civilizations would engage in child sacrifice. These people would be enduring famine, pestilence or war and all other attempts to temper the anger of what they saw as a wrathful god fails so eventually they fall to child sacrifice. Surely no one believes that someone's first instinct is to kill children? These people were desperately trying to contact or appease their god. Now let's actually think: If there really was some big, magic guy in the clouds and he really, really did exist... how horrible, how inconceivably cruel must this creature be NOT to contact these poor cultures and simply correct them! "Wow, hey, you guys are REALLY dedicated! Thanks, I - I mean it, thanks but no, I don't want you guys to sacrifice children. Instead - how about worshiping me with songs!" Christians are simply incapable of understanding this! A god that would rather massacre a civilization down to its babies than talk to people who are obviously reaching out to him is either Evil, Stupid or Impotent!

• 3) Not all the Canaanite civilizations engaged in child sacrifice yet all were targeted by this blood thirsty monster. Realize that this creature never mentions that the cultures are evil or engaging in cruel activilities. Jehovah has NEVER had a problem with cruelty or brutality. Jehovah, or more reasonably, the Jewish theocracy is only interested in aggressive land grabs!

• 4) If America encountered a culture engaging in child sacrifice what would happen? America, unlike Jehovah, is a moral entity and would attempt to change the government and educate its people. If America massacred an entire culture because the priests engaged in something horrible - wouldn't we be considered evil? How would murdering the children of the culture save the children of the culture? Understanding that Jehovah is apparently omnipotent and would not be harmed by changing the leadership only serves to boldface this monster's arbirtrary evil.

Immorality:

• 1) How can a culture that engages in slavery, wars of aggression and the murder of infidels possibly judge other cultures? Israel is no more or less moral than its contemporaries and can raise no stone against a horribly evil, gay-tolerating society while it is allowing its soldiers to keep conquered virgins as plunder.

• 2) Whose fault is this so-called immorality? The canaanites were not given laws by Jehovah and pretty much had to fend for themselves. If a child acts out in school and is unaware that stealing is wrong - wouldn't his parents be at fault? If a culture's moralites are apparently screwed up than there is only one being to blame - it's original supposed creator; Jehovah. If there really, really was a big, invisible guy in the clouds and these people were offending him - wouldn't he tell them? "Uh... yeah... that, that gay tolerating thing... yeah... could you knock that off please? Oh and could you please stone more girls that end up being not virgins at marriage? That would be great!" Why can't Christians understand this? Christians are so used to rationalizing the non-actions of a god that obviously doesn't exist that it is apparently impossible for them to think any other way.

• 3) If America encountered a culture that it considered immoral... like say a culture that doesn't allow its women to vote, kills infidels and tortures its critics... would it be moral for America to slaughter the entire culture down to the last old woman and blind man? Of course not and Jehovah's behavior is equally immoral.

They deliberately turned their backs on God.
This is so INFINITELY stupid that I don't even know where to start!

• 1) Do people really do wildly unproductive, insanely dangerous things just to be bad? Really, does this EVER happen? If a maniac with a bazooka told you to cross the street - would you cross the frikkin street or not? Jehovah is represented in the Old Testament as an ill-tempered psychotic with high-powered weapons; how many sane people would simply ignore a real god and invent a religion just to be bad? HOW DUMB!!! How many people in Iran decide to start new religions? No one? Maybe because this concept is so alien to human nature that we don't even think about it!!

• 2) Do people really follow new ways of doing things if the old ways work and the new ways don't? If religion was real than it would behave like any other real process on this planet. You do A and B happens. If our ancestors knew all about Jehovah and knew all the correct sacrifices and prayers to give to him than only the insanely stupid would diverge from these processes. Do masons, metal workers and sailors diverge from tried and true methods just to be bad? No - again, human nature is all about following methods that work and dropping methods that do not. The fact is: ALL religions are ridiculous superstition so all prayers and sacrifices accomplish the same anecdotal/placebo effects. No religion can show its efficacy over all other religions because ALL religions are lies! Eventually human nature will require that we drop these unnecessary mythologies.

• 3) If people are so insanely, suicidally stupid that they would turn their backs on a divine maniac with WMDs than whose fault is that? It is the fault of the person who created the brains of these chowder heads! If my child is so stupid that he would ignore me and run in front of a truck - that's my fault too!

You have to think about this... what POSSIBLE motivation would anyone have to come up with new religions or worship a false god? There is NOTHING anyone can gain through this and they do it knowing that they're pissing off a rather violent, unbalanced creature with a well-used holy-bazooka! It just goes against every human instinct!

Which is more likely?

• A) Jehovah is real and yet people, fully knowing that Jehovah is the real god, just make new religions because they want to be bad. They have no possible motive other than the possible desire to fulfill their own suicidal stupidity since they gain nothing and this creature will kill whole societies at the drop of a hat.

• B) Jehovah and all the other gods are just personifications of natural events created by imaginative primitives. Jehovah, Ra, Odin, Zeus are all just ancient myths our ancestors used to explain their universe.

Does Jehovah ONLY slaughter evil pagans?
Oh no, not even close. When David takes a census - Jehovah murders 70,000 innocent Israelis. When Aaron's children provide the wrong ingredients for a sacrifice Jehovah doesn't correct them - he KILLS them! When a man steadies the Ark of the Covenant; Jehovah murders him. When Christians try to rationalize the census massacre it REALLY gets entertaining. These Israelies had done nothing wrong but Jehovah killed them to teach David a lesson. There is no question that this abominable act is desperately evil but no Christian will admit to it. Certainly if murdering the innocent to teach a king a lesson is God's way then the US should've bombed Iraqis by the thousands until Hussein finally learned his lesson. RIDICULOUS!

Which is more likely?

• A) Jehovah is a real god that has little or no contact with people unless they do what he doesn't like at which point he mindlessly massacres thousands hoping someone will catch on.

• B) Jehovah is yet another tribal myth blamed for the deaths of thousands due to plague, famine and failed military campaigns. Everytime there's a plague or a conquest - the culture thinks they must've done something wrong and examines their moralities. (Hint: EVERY culture blamed their misfortunes on angry gods.)

Jehovah's arbitrary massacres and brutality is an undeniable part of Hebrew mythology. It is an interesting psychological phenomenon however to see the jabbering rationalizations of frightened Christians who believe they are dependent on this heavenly serial killer for their afterlives.