When you read the old testament there’s a lot of stuff about how cities are bad and don’t offer hospitality. That’s a big deal with nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, and was even the key sin in their description of Sodom and Gomorrah. It all harkons back to the early bronze age and that transition into sedentary lifestyle, with a lot of oral traditions sticking around as scripture once it got written down.
Yeah it gives the story of Cain & Able a whole new meaning. Imagine being in the situation as presented. You are literally the 3rd and 4th humans to exist. All you know is that God is awesome but your parents fucked up so now you have to work for a living. You bust your ass every day to make sure the food you’ve planted grows to provide not just for your family, but to give to God for some reason, just in case he’s hungry is 8 whatever.
Your brother does the same, but instead of vegetables he murders a fucking lamb. Maybe he kills sheep for food all the time, out maybe this is literally the first time he’s ever killed one. Your parents never ate meat, they lived in the Garden and are fruits and vegetables. But here’s God giving your brother mad props for his baby animal murder while you sacrifice a month’s worth of food and God - God - is all “yeah whatever, should have killed something that bleeds instead.”
You’d have lost your mind too, your whole psychological worldview just got bitch slapped by the Almighty. “Oh he wants blood? Okay, I know where to find plenty. C’mere brother.”
And people wonder why I call their god the Tyrant.
The shepherd thrives by exploiting the existence of a fellow animal’s flesh for their own gain. God (religion) thrives by exploiting a fellow human being’s hopes, fears, insecurities, and desire for purpose for it’s own gain. Plants are alive but not to the same level of awareness we can recognize in other animals, and we do have to eat something to stay alive. But it’s little wonder that a made up god favors the development of hierarchies of exploitation that use those who commodify others most effectively as the best example.
When you read the old testament there’s a lot of stuff about how cities are bad and don’t offer hospitality. That’s a big deal with nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, and was even the key sin in their description of Sodom and Gomorrah. It all harkons back to the early bronze age and that transition into sedentary lifestyle, with a lot of oral traditions sticking around as scripture once it got written down.
Even in Genesis, God supposedly preferred the sheep herder over the agrarian
Yeah it gives the story of Cain & Able a whole new meaning. Imagine being in the situation as presented. You are literally the 3rd and 4th humans to exist. All you know is that God is awesome but your parents fucked up so now you have to work for a living. You bust your ass every day to make sure the food you’ve planted grows to provide not just for your family, but to give to God for some reason, just in case he’s hungry is 8 whatever.
Your brother does the same, but instead of vegetables he murders a fucking lamb. Maybe he kills sheep for food all the time, out maybe this is literally the first time he’s ever killed one. Your parents never ate meat, they lived in the Garden and are fruits and vegetables. But here’s God giving your brother mad props for his baby animal murder while you sacrifice a month’s worth of food and God - God - is all “yeah whatever, should have killed something that bleeds instead.”
You’d have lost your mind too, your whole psychological worldview just got bitch slapped by the Almighty. “Oh he wants blood? Okay, I know where to find plenty. C’mere brother.”
And people wonder why I call their god the Tyrant.
The shepherd thrives by exploiting the existence of a fellow animal’s flesh for their own gain. God (religion) thrives by exploiting a fellow human being’s hopes, fears, insecurities, and desire for purpose for it’s own gain. Plants are alive but not to the same level of awareness we can recognize in other animals, and we do have to eat something to stay alive. But it’s little wonder that a made up god favors the development of hierarchies of exploitation that use those who commodify others most effectively as the best example.